Trooper tales : a series of sketches of the real American private soldier

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

»w

*•**/

TROOPER TALES

A SERIES OF SKETCHES

OF

The Real American Private Soldier

BY

WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT

NEW YORK

STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS
238 WILLIAM STREET

Copyright,

1899,
STREET & SMITH.

PS

tlje great outer wall of a great rjation,
THE REGULAR ARMY MAN,

who does what he is told, silently, ingloriously,

surely, this volume of cavalry sketches

is dedicated by one who lingered

with you for a little while, and

knows, therefore, how

great you are.

715763

CONTENTS.

PACB

The New Recruit in the Black Cavalry. . . 11

The Silent Trooper 22

The Degeneration of Caddie 43

Toreador the Game One. .... 55

The Wooing of Beuito. 69

Two Women and a Soldier 81

Red Brennan of the Seventh 95

A Soldier of Misfortune. . . ••'... 107

Shadow and the Cherub 121

Back to San Anton'. 133

The Voice in the Fourth Cell 145

The Good Which Was in Him. . . . 159

The Aberration of Private Brown. . . . 173

The Last Cell to the Right 187

The Fever's Fifth Man 201

The Story of a Cavalry Horse. . . . 211

A Soldier and a Man. 225

INTRODUCTION.

Civilians write army stories. Commissioned officers
write army stories. Enlisted men laugh at the former
because the author is remote and they cannot bruise
him. Had they the power to lure the civilian into their
midst they would shortly drill him full of real army col
oring, and his effusions would be shrunken 'with lean,
beautiful wisdom ever after. But, since he keeps his per
sonality removed, the soldiers can only laugh.

The literary efforts of commissioned officers are dis
cussed in whispers by the enlisted men, because they are
only enlisted men, while the commissioned officers are
old and young gods, who become very masterful beings
when criticised audibly by men from the ranks.

But no one can deny that the army stories of commis
sioned officers are full of officers' instinct, and officers'
fleckless uniforms, and clubs, and ladies. The enlisted
men who emerge upon these idyllic pages are sort of
baneful and temporary necessities, as are warts. There
are orderlies with square shoulders and brick faces, whose
vocabularies consist of "Yes, sir," and "No, sir," uttered
in disfigured English. In the stories of commissioned
officers the enlisted man is a thing for duty, not for speech
— a thing to fight if necessary, not to think — an animal
whose pastimes are cards, canteens and colored ladies —

viii INTRODUCTION.

whose realm does not embrace an aptness in the softer
arts. In short/ he is an atom of no consequence.

I realize that, in writing thus, I hurl from me all dreams
of ever being a private soldier again — at least, under the
name I used in my last enlistment. It is pathetic for a
writer who might be a soldier to starve just because he is
frank.

The army stories which civilians write have none of this
ungovernable officer's instinct. Corporals and colonels
become chummy in such tales. A trooper and a troop
commander wax convivial together at the canteen. And
that is why enlisted men who read all army stories grin
unfeelingly.

The young man who scans this volume of cavalry
stories and enlists afterward will probably make a good
soldier, because he must be a very reckless young man.
The enclosed choice cuts of wisdom were drilled and
pounded into the author, and the wisdom which leaves
tooth marks behind is not superficial.

And yet the man does not exist who has once soldiered
who does not yearn sometimes to again be a blue atom in
the great blue mass which makes the backbone of Uncle
Sam's fighting bottom — when it comes to a show down.

The cactus and alkali of the Southwest blows about in
a couple of these yarns, because I "soldiered" there. The
flies and fever of a Southern army camp crawl about in
a couple of others because I "soldiered" there. A num
ber of the yarns are full of the groans and drug odors of
an army hospital, because I was fortunate enough to get

INTRODUCTION. ix

out of there alive. Some of the stories are spattered with
the mud of Porto Rican hills, and are dark brown from the
grisly pressure of Cuban sunshine — I left friends (and I
hope no debts) in both places. Only a few others re
main. These are yellow with guard-house coloring, be
cause I "soldiered" — well, all good soldiers have served
time.

It would arouse suspicion to declare that the accom
panying yarns are all true, but I'll swear that I tried to
make pictures of real American cavalrymen and their
troop horses — and the pictures were made mostly be
tween bugle-calls. I have tried to show that there are
men in the ranks of Uncle Sam's horsemen — wild, in
corrigible, splendid men !

If I have made an inglorious fizzle of the task — well, I
have "soldiered" in vain.

Wiw, LEVINGTON COMFORT.

The Recruit in the Black Cavalry.

THE

RECRUIT IN THE BLACK CAVALRY.

What his real name was, nobody remembered. It could
be found somewhere in the troop-books. Because he could
sing like a woman, the boys in the Black Horse troop
called him "Sadie." There are two colored cavalry regi
ments in Uncle Sam's service. Both showed what great
black demons they could be last summer in the hills back
of Santiago.

A train containing part of one of these regiments
stopped in Tampa for a few minutes near a white cavalry
camp. It is a wonder that there was no blood shed.
There were many men from the South in the ranks of the
white troops. They were in a frenzy of rage because
the darkeys were under orders for the front, while they,
were being slowly broiled under the canvas of a torrid
camp. A month later, many of those same darkey cav
alrymen were brought back. They had been to the front.
They had heafd the song of the Mauser. Many times
the song had ended in a grunt from some sandy, sticky
throat, and a hero was made. The wounded cavalrymen
in the hospital train were deliriously happy. The battle
fever fires one's blood for weeks after.

14 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry.

The wounded coming back were received differently.
The Tampan troopers were browner and thinner and
uglier than before, but they cheered and petted the heroes
until the train pulled out for the Northern hospitals.
After that the men who had never left the States became
sullen and insubordinate and worked themselves into a
state of melancholy inebriation — because they had not
been given a chance to prove that they were soldiers all.
But this is the story of Sadie, the toughest, blackest and
sweetest-voiced recruit who ever came to the Black Horse
troop.

His beauty was purely physical. He never learned
anything about horses in the cavalry service. It was his
instinct to master a mount. His limbs had a most beau
tiful cavalry curve, and superb saddle muscles bulged out
the thick trousers of army blue. His shoulders and lungs
were equaled only in power by his digestion.

Sadie never had a serious interval. At least, not while
he was a soldier. In fact, there is less seriousness in a
black troop of cavalry than in any other place in the
world. But you ought to see them on a skirmish line!
They fight without nerves, feelings, fears. They know
no hunger, thirst or pain.

To hear Sadie sing, "Swing a-low, Sweet Chariot," on
the moon-lit deck of a transport — well, a man would
think things which never occurred to him before — espe
cially if he were advancing toward a hostile coast. And
then there was a little gunboat shining through the dark
off the starboard bow — a pugnacious little fellow that

The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 15

shot toward every suspicious gleam or shadow on the
tropic sea, and tried to darken the moon with its search
light. The great dark transport steamed southward
through the gloom, secure in the protection of her baby
consort's big guns. Indeed, she could have steamed
southward just as steadily if the gunboat had perched
itself upon her hurricane deck. And Sadie, the black re
cruit, lounged in the moonlight with the other cavalry
men, and crooned soft melodies about dusky maidens
back in the summer States.

As a rule, American soldiers, white and black, eat three
times a day. Once in a while, however, in the stress of
international war, or an indisposed second cook, it be
comes necessary to forego government straights. A box
of hard tack is then placed in a convenient place and the
men receive orders to "bust" themselves. When the sun
is pouring down yellow volleys which make you limp and
vicious; when your tongue shrivels up like a boiled clam
at the mere sight of salt water ; when the fresh water is
warm as a flask of spirits kept in a laborer's hip pocket,
and smells as if it had been filtered through all the
blankets in the forecastle ; when you are unloading petu
lant and plunging cavalry horses, and your feet are blis
tered from the hot decks, and your blue army shirt steams
and suffocates — well, no matter if you are fond of hard
tack, you can't choke it down.

The black troops landed, while the little gunboat
watched and pointed its guns toward the great, brown,
treeless hills. Somewhere back of those sun-burned, de-

16 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry.

serted hills there was a city, which sported the wrong
flag. The name of that city was Santiago. The black
cavalrymen knew that they must hunt the hills for the
town and correct the little mistake about the flag — more
than that was the business of the white commissioned
officers.

Back from the hills the night shadows crept. The
sun sank blood-red and vicious across the water. The
smell of rain was in the air. The picket lines were
stretched upon the shore, and the baggage was piled
above the high-tide mark. There had been an informal
guard-mount, and the men had received orders not to
leave the camp. They were refreshed by hot coffee and
a plunge in the sea, but they were hungry still. A couple
of vultures trailed across the sky, but nothing human
could be seen by the troopers on land — nothing save the
darkening hills and the watcher out on the bay. A rain
cloud skirted the shore-line to the leftt and its torrents
pounded the water and the hill-margins a half mile away.
The men could hear it coming closer. Those who watched
from the gunboat could see faint red lights far back in
the hills.

The black troopers growled because they had to smoke
on an empty stomach ; they growled because the rain put
out their pipes and the cook fires, and because they would
have to shiver in the wet and cold for a dozen hours.
Tropical showers do not last, but it is unpleasant to sleep
where they have been. But big, black, toughened cav
alrymen can sleep anywhere. It was very late when the

The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 17

dripping stable guard of the Black Horse troop kicked
about among the puddles and snoring soldiers, inquiring
testily :

"Wheah's Sadie — wheah's dat a-fool niggah, Sadie?"

Now, the sentry had walked his post up and down the
picket line for two long, soaking hours. He wanted to
turn over his orders to Sadie, and be relieved. But it
was evident that Sadie was not in camp. To go about
proclaiming the fact would mean trouble for the missing
recruit, therefore the sentry went back to his post and
started to do Sadie's guard. The idea that he was doing
anybody in particular a good turn did not worry the
sentry, but if he could have caught the black recruit that
minute something would have happened.

That night the corporal of the guard did an unsoldierly
thing. He deliberately woke up, consulted his watch, and
figured out by a process of his own that Sadie should be
walking his post down on the picket line. As Sadie was
a recruit, and it was the first night on hostile soil, the
corporal deemed it advisable to find out if his man would
challenge properly. The top layer of wet sand under the
non-commissioned officer was thoroughly warmed
through, and he hated to let it cool off, which was very
easy as compared to the warming process, but a conscien
tious man was the corporal. When he found the wrong
man on post, he was glad that he had left his warm hole
in the sand.

Not long after that, Sadie slipped past the guard with'
two limp pullets and a very noisy, very much animated

i8 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry.

game chicken in his arms. The recruit was panting and
wet, indeed, but his eyes were shining. He tethered the
game one out in the bush and concealed the two limp
birds under his blanket. Then he buckled on his six-
shooter, shouldered his carbine, and started for the picket
line to relieve his man. It was not until Sadie had told
the much-abused sentry where he would find a plump
chicken that there was peace. Meanwhile the corporal
figured out the best way was to do his duty on the fol
lowing day, and slowly re-warmed his hole in the sand.
And the gaudy little gamecock ruffled his feathers in the
dark and clucked low, and scolded.

The result of the corporal's figuring reached Sadie
about seven o'clock the following morning. He was in
condition to hear the worst, for one of those plump pul
lets had been broiled at dawn. There is the makings of
a mighty soldier in a plump Spanish chicken. The col
ored corporal reported the absence of the black recruit
to the top sergeant, also black. Among other things, the
top sergeant mentioned the affair to the troop com
mander, who was white, and also very wet and ugly that
morning. And so it came about that the black recruit
saw the troop commander striding his way about seven
a. m. with blood in his eye and these words:

"Do you think this troop is out hunting butterflies —
eh? You're under arrest — understand? And I'll court-
martial you when the men take that town up in the hills —
understand — eh ?"

It would be prompt and certain self-destruction for the

The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 19

black recruit to answer back a white commissioned offi
cer, who was so wet and ugly. Sadie was enough of a
soldier to know this. He stood at attention and saluted
gracefully every time his superior officer finished a sen
tence. After that he was placed under a guard. The
sentry who had done an extra hour for the recruit the
night before was Sadie's friend for life. This was
brought about because the second plump pullet had
also been broiled at dawn. The two friends conferred
together during the first hour of the recruit's incarcera
tion.

"Ah mos' cert'ny feels strong dis a-mawnin'," observed
the black boy. "Dat Spanish chickum did mos' glori-
fusly do her duty by a-me. But Ah had to gib obah mah
shootin' ir'ns to dat Gawd-a-fearin' cawpril. What foh
does yoh s'pose he dun wanted to make trouble foh a-me
dat away? . . . Is de troop dun a-gwine up de hills
dis a-mawnin'?"

The prisoner was told that all the horses were to be
kept back with one troop to guard them — that the others
were going to start up toward the city as dough boys
early in the afternoon — that there were a half dozen
dough-boy regiments farther up the hills — that there
were acres of block houses and miles of barb-wire fences
and trenches, and a whole Spanish army hidden some
where within the sound of cannon — that the American
fleet was laying off the coast in front of Santiago, and
that the Spanish squadron was behind Castle Morro in

2O The Recruit in the Black Cavalry.

the harbor — that there was going to be merry hell up the
hills which would last for a week or ten days.

"Is — de — Black — Hoss — troop — dun — agwine — up—
de — hills — or — stay back?" Sadie's full lips, which
formed the question, were ashy gray. The words were
uttered in a slow, hopeless whisper. Here's the reply to
his question:

"Does yoh fink for one moment dat dey's agwine to
leab de cream an' skallups ob de whole niggah regiment
back heah to shine up de skates — when de band's dun
agwine to play dead marches an' de variations up yon-
dah?"

The troop commander was approaching. The sentry
came to "present arms," and the prisoner stood "at at
tention." Great thoughts were in the brain of the black
recruit. He was about to make the bravest effort of his
life.

"Will de captain 'low me to go up de hills in de troop
to-day — an' serve mah time after de fun am obah, sah ?"

"I'll turn you over to the other troop, where you'll be
under a guard — that's what I'll do to you — understand —
eh?"

The sun was steaming out the rain from the troop
commander's blouse, but he was wet and ugly still. Sadie
saluted in graceful silence, and choked down a great, dry
lump in his throat. After the captain was out of earshot,
the black recruit said to his friend :

"Las' night Ah dun larieted mah HI* game chickum out
in the bresh. He wah a-crowin' up in de hills, when Ah

The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 21

heard him. Ah knowed he wah a game chickum 'cos he
dun crowed in de night time. You bring him heah to
a-me. I wants dat HI' game chickum. He dun make me
lose de onliest chance in dis niggah's life."

The little game one was tethered by one leg in front
of the quarters of the disgraced Sadie. The two talked
to each other, while the mutual friend was absent for a
handful of grain.

"Whah foh yoh dun call to me in de night time, when
yoh knows Ah mustn't leab a-camp ?"

The game one talked back spitefully. His beady black
eyes sparkled with pure wickedness, and he squared off
in splendid fighting form when the prisoner thrust his
heavy boot within the circle of the tether. The bird had
thick, stocky legs, and gaffs hard as crystal. His body
feathers were glossy black, and his muscular neck had
copper-hued trimmings. Even for a Spanish chicken, the
game one was a fancy article.

"Ah mos' cert'ny los' mah nerve when Ah heard yoh
callin' to me up in de hills las' ebenin'. Ah sure knowed
you had some HI' sisters up dar. You ought to be a mos'
broken-hearted HI' chickum foh dis a-poh niggah. Ah
hopes de whole Spanish army and barb wires comes
aheah when de odah troops is dun gone. Yoh and me,
an' dose Bay Hoss niggahs will dun take de island bah
ahselves. . . . What yoh dun scoldin' about, mah
HI' game chickum ?"

The hot, brown hills were darkening again. Over in
the low southeast, the crescent shaving of a moon paled

32 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry.

in the deepening twilight. Out in the bay, the gunboat
leaned on its moorings and watched. All at once there
ripped over the hot Cuban hills a ragged carbine volley.
Evidently the black troops had found something to play
with. An hour afterwards, and the hills were great dark
shadows, for the night overhung them. The white shav
ing of a moon was higher.

About this time every darkey cavalryman in the Bay
Horse troop heard the howls of a fallen sentry, and the
angry cackling of an outraged game chicken. But not
one of the boys who stayed behind saw the black recruit,
who was clutching a loaded carbine and whirring away
toward the great black shadows.

Now, everybody knows that you can't see Santiago
from the coast. You can't even see Morro Castle a mile
out at sea, because its ramparts are the color of the rocks.
Entering the channel, your craft will be at the mercy of
Morro's guns. Then you will pass the sunken Merrimac,
and a couple of Spanish men-of-war, the cabins of which
are excellent breeding-places for big fish. After that you
will see a round basin full of warm, yellow water and
hungry sharks. To the left is a sun-scorched plain, where
yellow-fever patients fight for life, losing generally; and
in front, sitting on the slope of a hill, is Santiago, minus
some of its rottenness of a year ago, but hardly immacu
late yet.

Four miles back of Santiago there is a hill which looks
down upon the city and its harbor. Upon the top of that
hill there is a big block-house. Upon its sides there are

The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 23

many other block-houses, also barbed pitfalls, intrench-
ments — and graves. It was upon that hill that the black
demons broke their leash, forgot their thirst, and gained
everything save the glory they deserved. But they were
only regulars.

Something went wrong in a volunteer battalion that
afternoon. They were good men and brave, but raw.
They had not eaten for many hours. The sun beat piti
lessly down. It soaked into the wet sand and sent forth
a sickening steam. It sank through the dusty campaign
hats of the volunteers and put mad thoughts in every
brain. It swung a black-dotted haze before every eye.
It chafed the skin under every cartridge belt, and blis
tered every neck. And all the while there came down
from the hill the nagging, maddening patter of the long-
range Mausers. And all the while there came down from
the sky the stifling, pitiless pressure of the sun.

The volunteer battalion wavered and fell back — "re
tired in disorder," the official report read. It was the
one ugly blotch on the American soldiers in Cuba. The
volunteers have long since been forgiven by the friends
of their native State ; but the colored cavalry troops, and
the other regulars who did not fall back, will never for
give that battalion for what the sun madness wrought in
their raw ranks at the base of San Juan hill that July
day.

The "niggers" went by them — a cursing, unfeeling
mass of animals. They preserved a ragged skirmish line
all the way. They ran a little, dropped to their bellies

24 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry.

and fired, vaulted the barbed entanglements and caught
their breath in the trenches they had gained. And Sadie
was in the ranks of his own Black Horse troop, clutching
a red-hot carbine, and talking to himself in a perfect de
lirium of joy!

"Dose white ladies is a-mos' cert'ny unhappy," the
black recruit was heard to mutter after the raw battalion
was left behind. The words came in a stifled whisper.
His throat was caked with hot dust, and his nostrils were
full of it, but Sadie did not know. He did not remem
ber that he should have been a prisoner back with the
game chicken and the Bay Horse troops. He did not
know that the troop commander had seen him on the
skirmish line with the others, and the white officer hardly
knew whether to laugh or swear. As a matter of fact,
the troop commander did both, and he also hoped that the
black recruit would get wounded, so that he might forego
the punishment which his insubordination made neces
sary. Sadie knew nothing, felt nothing but the glory of
the moment.

"An* dis am mos' cert'ny a wahm time. Is Ah glad
Ah'm libbin'? Well, Ah hope Ah is. ... Dey sure
ought to gib us asbestos mittins to pump dese heah car
bines, foh dey would mos' cert'ny boil coffee! . . .
Hello, dar, mah angel broddah, gimme dat a-cigarette.
Ain't yoh a-dyin' fast enuf, widout hittin' de coffin
nails?"

A wounded Spaniard, braced up in a trench, was weak
ly puffing at a cigarette; nor was he the only one who

The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 25

was seen smoking and dying on the slope of San Juan
Hill that day. Sadie drew a deep inhalation into his
lungs, then put the cigarette back between the lips of the
Spanish soldier.

"Ah guess Ah don't want yoh las' butts — yoh may
wake up in de middle ob de night an' need it. ...
O-o-o-oh, dah's dat Gawd-a-fearin' cawpril!"

The non-commissioned officer who had made trouble
for the recruit a few nights before was having a very
fast time. A Spanish infantryman was in the trench with
him. Both were fighting for their lives. The Spaniard
had a bayonet attached to his, Mauser ; the corporal had
nothing but a bare, hot carbine. Sadie settled the matter
in favor of the Black Horse trooper. Many of the block
houses were silenced, but whistling death still blazed out
of the big one on top of the hill. The barb wire traps
became thicker, and more men on the skirmish line fell
back into the trenches and grunted out impotent curses.
Many others lay silent. The black troops were not the
only ones who kept the small of their backs to the
trenches, no longer Spanish, that afternoon.

"Dis cert'ny am de mos' glorifussest moment ob mah
life," gasped the black recruit. He vaulted a barbed wire
pitfall and was racing toward a trench, two rods ahead.
Two Spaniards scrambled out and started to dash for the
summit. They never reached it, because too many Ameri
can soldiers were counting on just such chances as that.
The battle fever was wild in Sadie's blood. At that mo
ment some one up in the block-house did not shoot too

26 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry.

high. Sadie stumbled and was the first man who landed
in the upper pit.

"Ugh!" grunted the black recruit. "Ah mos' cert'ny
am punctahed at de present time. Ah wondah ef dose
fool Spaniards am acquaintanced ob de fac' dat dey can't
kill dis a-niggah. . . . Ah is dun agwine to sit heah
till de boys am in de block-house up yondah."

The above came in choking fragments. The troop
commander had seen the rescue of the corporal and the
plunge of the black recruit into the higher trench. For
some reason he swore. It was not a loud oath. The dust
which stuck in his throat would not permit that. And
that night from the top of San Juan Hill many American
soldiers, white and black, but Americans all, saw the
lights of Santiago shining down in the valley. And all
night long the Red Cross men kicked about the trenches
with lanterns.

They found the black recruit sitting in one of the high
est pits. His blue army shirt was wet and gory. A car
bine rested across his knees. The barrel was cold now.
Sadie was asleep.

The Red Cross men thrust the lantern into the face
of the black recruit. He opened his eyes, squinted hard
at the light, and muttered :

"Wheah's mah lil' game chickum?"

The troop commander stood at the bunk of the black
recruit in the temporary hospital just outside of Santiago.
By the way, the city no longer sported the wrong flag.

The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 27

And there was a twinkle in the eyes of the troop com
mander as he said:

"We're going to send you back to the States to-morrow
on the hospital ship. We won't court-martial you until
you get back from sick-leave — understand — eh ?"

"If de captain dun gibs me five yeahs an' a bob-tail,
Ah'll still be glad dat Ah wah .in de Black Hoss troop at
de propah moment, sah !"

"You sabed mah life," said the corporal.

"Why, what yoh talkin' about, cawpril?" said Sadie.

And when the captain and the corporal had gone away,
the black recruit questioned his best friend in this wise:

"Is de Bay Hoss niggahs come up yet — wif mah lil'
game chickum?"

The Silent Trooper.

THE SILENT TROOPER.

Lander, trooper in private ranks, never told just why
he was kicked by his lieutenant, Mat Crim. Lander never
told anything. That accounts for his being left to him
self more than is common or judicious for one of Uncle
Sam's horsemen in field or post.

A troop is a family of big boys. Some of them are big
bad boys, and an odd thing about it is that these are not
always the unpopular ones. Troopers do not fall on the
neck of a new man. They treat him with pinnacled dig
nity, like old cavalry horses treat additions to the picket
line. If the new man, in a reasonable period, develops
no objectionable traits, he will find himself a member of
the family, which is other words for a good fellow.

Because a man happens to be a gambler or a drunkard ;
or because he has a deep-rooted aversion for the various
prongs of the law — a kind of shuddering aversion such
as many soldiers and gentlemen have for work — none of
these things form a primary necessity for his ostracism
from the family group.

But he can't be a silent man nor a sneak ; neither can
he manipulate a voluminous correspondence. These
things are fatal. Lander was a silent man.

He was also my "bunkie," which means that I could

32 The Silent Trooper.

put out a hand almost any time in the night and touch
him. Naturally, under such conditions, my very proper
prejudice against him on account of his infernal reserve
would either grow into an uncomfortable suspicion, if
not worse, or else I would learn to look beyond this seri
ous mental derangement of his. As it was, I began to
feel for him that strong, wholesome respect which one
always has for physical capability, when it is not accom
panied by mental sluggishness.

Then I liked Lander's face. He was a handsome devil
— handsome astride his horse, and at mess and at groom
ing — handsome when silent. Yet I have seen his eye
lids droop over a wicked pair of shining eyes, and seen an
ugly, bloodless look about his lower lip.

I saw this on the hot day when Lieut. Mat Crim
kicked him in the back, because — I wish I knew myself.
I will tell you what I saw.

A couple of troops of the regiment were out on target
range. We were camped in a bunch of unaspiring foot
hills which, late in the afternoon, rested in the huge coni
cal shadow of Old Baldy. The tip of Old Baldy's icy
cone punctures the sky at one of the highest points in
Arizona. We were in that sand-stricken land where way
farers have to climb for water and dig for fuel-wood. We
were in that heat-ridden land where the lean, long coyote
scents death and trots cautiously thither — where the vul
ture cranes his bare, crimson neck from behind a cloud,
and peers earthward for dying things.

The loose walls of the big Sibley tent were not flapping

The Silent Trooper. 33

in a breeze that afternoon. The silken, tasseled flag which
crested headquarters hung limp and motionless. The
sun's rays were slanting and vicious. They sapped the
energy out of the breezes as they did out of every living
thing. The men rolled about the tents in wet, wilted
misery. Grooming call would soon be sounded. That
meant three-quarters of an hour over a sweating horse
in the sunshine. The men were putting on their dis
carded shirts now, and swearing in a listless monotone.

Lieut. Mat Crim was a little, wasp-waisted chap, who
had a dirty trick of getting mad. His West Point days
were too fresh in his mind for him to be a good officer.
He never allowed himself to lose sight of the fact that
he was a commissioned officer and that a mighty stretch
of superiority lay between him and a common, enlisted
man. Crim had just been transferred to our troop. Lan
der had come from another regiment two months before.
The two men met that hot afternoon — just before groom
ing time.

Lander saluted. Crim stopped short, caught at his
breath several times and began to relieve himself of a
lot of livid English, all of which struck me as mysterious.
Lander stood "at attention," said something in a low voice
and walked away.

Lieut. Crim was ungovernable. He sprang after Lan
der, kicked him in the back and said :

"I'll make life a hell for you, Charlie Howard !" which
I judge must have been Lander's civilian name.

34 The Silent Trooper.

Lander turned, looked devilish and raised his big right
arm. His superior officer was under it.

But Lander's arm never touched Lieut. Crim, a circum
stance which made me cry aloud:

"Thank God!"

It dropped down, while Lander laughed low and me
lodiously. I was thinking how wicked Lander looked
when he laughed that way. Then the bugle sounded
"stables."

Every man in the troop detested the lieutenant, and
all admired Lander for keeping his nerve. One of the
most unprofitable things a soldier can do is to strike a
superior officer. The same kind of a finish awaits him
as if he had been found sleeping at his post.

I watched Lander, and Lander watched Lieut. Crim
during the several following weeks. And they were not
pretty eyes, those strange eyes of Lander's, as they trailed
the movements of his superior officer.

To all he preserved his self-bound intensity. Glad, in
deed, would I have been to come very close to the heart
of this silent man, because I learned to have deep feelings
for him. He possessed the cold nerve which makes
heroes, and the great, warm heart which makes friends —
I was sure of this. But his nature was broad enough
to cover his troubles, so he did not confide in men. Heroes
can hate well. ,

Why my eyes wandered to the opposite side of one of
Lander's letters while he was holding it up, and there
lingered for a single disgraceful second, is something

The Silent Trooper. 35

more than I can explain. I can only regret it. At any
rate, I saw these words:

"Oh, Charlie, do let me come to you!"

A lady-killer is my silent friend, thought I ; but I didn't
mean to read part of his letter — really, I didn't.

After five weeks the troops were ordered to the bar
racks. No one was sorry, for life on target range in
Arizona is tedious, putting it with studied mildness. And
then they have mosquito netting in the barracks.

A tragedy was enacted on those moonlit foothills at
Old Baldy's base the last night on range. I am not a
handy man at tragedies. It was this way:

"Say, old chap," said Lander in a light manner the
morning before, "do a little favor for me, will you? I
want you to meet a lady for me. I believe I will have
another engagement to-night!"

"A lady in this damned country !" I whispered excited
ly. Nothing but greaser maidens and squaws had I seen
for months — it seemed.

Reluctantly he handed me a note, part of which is
below :

"I could not help coming. I was frantic when I learned
that he was transferred to your troop. You must meet
me to-night. Did you think I could forget you? Oh,
Charlie, I may be acting unwomanly, but I am desperate.
No one knows me here in the village. I will be near the
last adobe hut on the north. Oh, why did you go away?
I thought * * * Come to-night. ELSIE."

"It's a common yarn," said Lander nervously. "She

36 The Silent Trooper.

knew me up north as a civilian. Crim and I were sta
tioned there, but he did not know me. I was only a
private. She was lovely to us both. The queer thing
about it is that I won out. Then it occurred to me that
I was only a common soldier, who had flunked at every
thing else he tried, and hardly fit to marry, so I applied
for a transfer and chased out. She wouldn't have Crim,
anyway.

"Now Crim turns up again in the attitude of my supe
rior officer, which is very dramatic, and the little woman
is here, which is also very dramatic; and as I can't see
them both I want you to go to her. I must keep the
other engagement. Tell her I'm a deserter, or dead, or
any old thing."

For the second time I heard Lander laugh low and
melodiously. I can hear it yet. He was either acting or
a devil for coolness.

"There'll be a show down to-night," he said.

After retreat, the lieutenant called for his horse and
loped slowly townward. The sun was red and low, and
the silken flag over headquarters was cased for the night.
A little later Lander entered the tent, drew his cartridge
belt about him and sauntered carelessly out.

"Don't keep the little woman waiting long," he whis
pered to me. I watched his form grow dim in the shadows
toward the village. Then I stepped into my cartridge
belt, looked at my six-shooter, and became one of the
mysterious townward procession. Something is going to
drop on the village road this night, I thought.

The Silent Trooper. 37

Lander was sitting by the roadside a mile from camp.
He was puffing a cheroot, and smiled, but did not speak
to me. A round moon whitened the heavens about Old
Baldy. I walked away from the village, then stole back
concealed by the chaparral. While I waited, I wondered
why I had not remembered to shake hands with Lander
that night.

It seemed a long time before the lieutenant's horse was
heard down the road. I hoped that Lander would pick
off his man from ambush. I hated to think he would
do it.

"Dismount, lieutenant!" sang out the man who had
been kicked, and he did not salute his superior officer.

What Crim said as he obeyed is rather important but
not necessary to this narrative. But Crim knew then
that he was only a common human man, like the being
before him., whom he had kicked. He saw in the faded
twilight a private in the regular army who, in the presence
of other men, was his slave, but who, alone in the foot
hills of Arizona, was a cool, determined, smiling foe. He
saw before him the handsome Charlie Howard, who was
loved by a woman he loved. He saw the reckless light
in Howard's eyes which boded no good. And in spite of
all these things, Lieut. Mat Crim was game.

The moon was looking over Old Baldy's icy crown
now, and the great dome above and the sand below were
filled with its whiteness.

"You acted the coward once, little officer — try to be
a man to-night," I heard Lander say. "It was imprac-

38 The Silent Trooper.

ticable to procure seconds, so you will have to rely upon
the honor of a common soldier. Perhaps you never as
sociated such sentiments with an enlisted man. I see
that you have your six-shooter. I was too soft-hearted
to bruise you with my hands."

Crim looked at his man keenly. He then looked over
his six-shooter carefully. He had been a clever shot at
West Point.

"Who gives the signal ?" he added, clearing his throat.

"Count three in the position of 'raise pistol/ " said Lan
der politely, "after which you are at liberty to fire as
soon as you please."

Crim's tall gelding browsed uneasily and whinnied.
He wanted to get back to the hay on the picket line, but
he was a trained cavalry horse and did not think of
trotting off alone. I watched, not knowing what else
to do.

Both men took position, and came to the regulation
"raise pistol."

"Ready?'' asked the lieutenant, clearing his throat
again.

"All ready," answered the silent man cheerfully. The
moonbeams whitened his forehead.

"One," said the lieutenant. Both men were motionless.

"Two!" he screamed. His arm dropped. There was
a noise and an empty shell in his six-shooter. The lieu
tenant had forgotten to say "Three."

Lander was dying in the moonlight, and there was no

The Silent Trooper. 39

empty shell in his six-shooter! Mat Crim, his superior
officer, ran to his horse like a thing affrighted, and gal
loped away.

"Go and tell her, old chap," Lander whispered, "that
Charlie Howard was afraid to meet her to-night. Tell
her that his memory is a far worthier shrine for her wor
ship than — a common cavalryman. Tell her I was a de
serter, because — damn it all, old- man, I think a lot of
the little witch. You needn't tell her that Crim is a
coward — just say he is a good shot."

And when there were no more words I hurried away
to the village to keep Lander's engagement. She was
there — a little thing, pretty and trembling. There was a
lace handkerchief in her hand and a soft perfume about
her.

I told her what Lander had said. She did not cry,
but clutched my arm with fierce strength.

"Take me to him/' she demanded.

I led the way back over the rolling road, and when we
neared the spot where I had left my silent friend in the
moonlight, I heard a long, low, mournful howl, the an
swer mingled with the echo.

"Let us hurry — faster !" I said.

There was no change. Lieut. Mat Crim had not re
turned. The woman picked up the pistol which had fallen
by the silent man's side, and drew open the cylinder with
the ease of a veteran. Six loaded cartridges fell into her
hand.

40 The Silent Trooper.

"You saw it all?" she questioned, slowly. "And he
was your friend ?"

I bowed.

"Then you will kill the coward for your friend's sake?"
She spoke the words altogether too loudly.

"He is my superior officer, madame," I whispered.

"Leave me now," she commanded.

"But, madame," I objected, "I must walk with you
back to the village."

"No, no! Leave me. I have this." She was replacing
the cartridges into the cylinder.

As I stood watching her, a bugler in the camp a mile
away played the last call a soldier hears at night — the
mournful, melancholy taps. And I looked down upon
my friend, the silent man — they would sound taps over
him to-morrow — and I forgot that I was only a private
in the regular army.

"Leave me now," she repeated.

And when I had gone a few paces I turned. She was
bending low.

The moon was high above Old Baldy now, and its
whiteness was upon the upturned face of the silent man.

Lieut. Mat Crim called for his horse the next morning,
when a guard told him that the bodies of Private Lander
and a white woman had been found out in the chaparral.

The Degeneration of Laddie,

THE DEGENERATION OF LADDIE.

In trouble was his normal condition. Laddie was
considerable of an artist in the first place, therefore he
could not have found himself in a worse predicament than
to be in Uncle Sam's service. If his artistic nature had
only been in his fingers, instead of his whole being, Lad
die might have found hapiness in the troop, for we all
loved him.

In that affected brain of his there was another dis
torted idea. He was possessed of the wild notion that he
was as clever a chap mentally and with his muscles as
any of his superior officers — oh !

Laddie feared neither black man nor white. He had
been in Porto Rico three months, and had enjoyed only
ten days' liberty. In spite of this handicap, the smiles of
the richest and prettiest senoritas in Manati were for him
solely, and I honestly believe that he had more friends
among the natives than any other cavalryman. His was
a genius for making friends

Three soldiers were standing on a mountain side just
out of Ciales. It was early evening. Twenty miles
away, through a rift in the mountains, they could see the

46 The Degeneration of Laddie.

Atlantic. The sun was sinking into the sea. The east
ern highlands were dim and shadowy now.

"Say we walk to Manati," suggested one of the three,
grinning. It was eight miles. Many are the govern
ment mules that have lain down and died on that trail.
The Manati River crosses it eleven times. Many are the
government mules that have kicked vainly and been car
ried away limp and lifeless, because they struck the Ma
nati fords in a wrong place. And government mules are
not without a number of kicks.

"You could not pay me to hit that trail in the night
time," declared the second soldier.

"I'll go with you," said Laddie, smiling. He was think
ing of the bright-eyed senorita, whose father had a cellar
full of wines, pale and ruddy. The idea grew upon him.

"Oh, I wouldn't go unless all three of us do," put in
the cavalryman who was first to speak.

Laddie was silent. He knew that he would go alone
if he saw the senorita that night.

"What time is it?" he asked finally.

"Five forty-five."

"Have you got a coin? Throw it up. If it's head, I
go alone." Laddie was smiling still.

"You've only been out of calaboose a couple of days.
Be careful you don't get collared again," warned the sol
dier holding the coin. He threw it up.

"Tail she is," they told Laddie. Together the soldiers
three wended their way back toward Ciales. A hundred

The Degeneration of Laddie. 47

yards they traversed in silence. Laddie stopped short.
He was not smiling now.

"Throw it up once more," he asked of them. By his
manner one would think he was trying to borrow money.
The other two soldiers made use of those expressions
which the natives over here picked up first.

"Well, you've got your way. It's head this time."

Laddie rolled up his sleeves. Then he felt in his pock
ets. "Give me a piece of tobacco. I'm short."

It was handed to him.

"I'll be back by reveille," he sang, and trotted down
the trail toward the first ford.

********

"Why, it's a cinch," quoth Laddie in the first stream.
The ripples splashed against his thighs, and his lower
jaw became unruly. He made the first four fords, and
the day was gone. He sat down on a rock and rested,
while the moon rose up and cheered him.

"Look out for the fifth and sixth fords going to Ciales
— the sixth and seventh they are coming back." He had
often heard the boss of the pack train say this. And he
remembered how his own horse had struggled in these
places when the squad came up from Manati. Laddie
shivered and started on.

"A man ought to have four legs for this fording busi
ness. Why in the devil was I born such a noodle? The
sixth is deep and broad ; the seventh is fast and deep."

He scrambled down the bank of the sixth. Already he
could hear the splashing down stream — the splashing of

48 The Degeneration of Laddie.

the falls just at the right of the seventh crossing. He
stood ankle deep in the river. A big red horse, resting in
the shallows, skipped out almost from under his feet. It
thrilled him unpleasantly. Faintly, in the moonlight, he
' could see the trail continuing oh the other side. He
faced a few degrees up stream and plunged in. The
mountain current chilled him breast high, and soaked
some papers in the pocket of his army shirt.

Laddie made the sixth, and the seventh, too — after a
fearful fight. His constant thought was, "What would I
do without the moonlight ?" He felt strong when he dis
cerned the lights of Manati, glimmering in the valley be
low. It was only half-past eight. He had done well.

Laddie passed the volunteer military headquarters
going back, and inquired of the sentinel the time of night.
It was about to strike twelve. He would be in his own
quarters by three — if the moon shone on the fords. He
was quite happy.

Stars were visible only in patches. Black streaks were
moving around the moon. Laddie looked up and started
on a trot. When the city was left behind, he removed
his trousers and put on his leggins once more next to the
skin. The memory of the red horse in the shallows made
him do this. For the first time he felt weary, when he
climbed up the Ciales bank of the fourth crossing. Rain
drops struck his face. The next ford was the ugly one,
and it was growing darker, darker. Already he could
hear the plunging river. His feet were troubling him
now, and the trail was slippery from rain.

The Degeneration of Laddie. 49

"God help me if I don't get there by reveille. They'll
think I've deserted — and with my record, heavens !"
********

He stood in the murky blankness on the fifth river
bank. It was so dark that he could not tell where the
cliffs ended and the sky began ; he could not see half way
across the angry Manati. Ah, but he could hear its roar !
Yes, and when he looked long he could see its foam. The
tropical rain beat down.

His strength was not so great as before, Laddie
thought. The waters beat mightily against him. Every
time he raised his foot he feared that he must fall. He
passed the nucleus of the river's force. His breath failed.
He stepped on a rolling stone, sank, and fought the
waters hands and feet. Chilled and bruised, he groped in
the rain for the trail. He had made the fifth ford going
back — oh, but he was weary. It seemed as if he found
the way and he walked on — for ages. His feet were
feverish and painful. He approached the river, the last
one he feared. It looked ugly and unnatural.

Laddie plunged in, struck a deep hole and was borne
swiftly down stream. He had hit the Manati in a wrong
place. And then began a cavalry recruit's battle against
faintness, fatigue, and a wicked current. The perpetual
smile on Laddie's tanned countenance vanished when he
told of that battle.

"I felt that my time to croak had come," Laddie said.
Two hundred yards below the point where he entered
the stream, the young cavalryman clambered up on the

50 The Degeneration of Laddie.

other side, and then he fell down in the rain. This is the
way he goes on with the story :

"I was groggy when I got up, and cold with the wind
and wet. I knew that I had wandered from the trail be
tween the fifth and sixth fords, because I had struck deep
water. I groped along the bank both ways, until I
thought dawn must be near. I prayed that I would stum
ble upon the trail.

"This extremity I would not have deemed necessary, if
I was only to be hung for missing reveille, but I would
get a call-down from four different parties besides. This
thought kept me on my feet. At last I walked away
from the river and got tangled up in a barbed wire fence.
The heavens did not give forth a ray, and it rained on.
Following the fence to the left, it led me back to the river.
I shuddered. There was still one more chance — to go
the other way with the wires. This I did, and to my
ears was borne a sweet sound. When I had wrung the
water out of my eyes, I also saw a sweet sight. A dog
barked and a shadowy shack loomed up before me.

"I knew I would get shot at for a guerrilla, if I stole
up, because the dog was making announcements. I
vented Spanish, therefore, in a loud voice and at a dis
tance :

" 'Americano soldato ! Americano soldato !' I threw
in some English to make a hit, and the rear door opened
a couple of inches. 'Tengo muchas penas, senor,' I
wailed, all of which means that I was an American sol
dier of many sorrows.

The Degeneration of Laddie. 51

" 'Enter, Senor Americano. Que lastima.' I was sin
gularly relieved to see the good wife hang up the family
musket. I was also made happy to see the good wife
rake up the coals in the fire-place and start a pot of cof
fee. Porto Rican coffee is as delicate and subtle in flavor
as it is mighty in body. I drank and would have departed.
There were dry clothes for me in the woman's hand. Her
husband had lit a cigar and gave it to me. An extra
hammock had been strung. How I wished I was not a
soldier that night.

"Yes, I rested. I thought I had made the Spaniard
understand the imperative nature of reveille roll-call, but
I hadn't. His spirit of hospitality was too massive. He
would not let me depart until I had lain down. How de
licious was the drowsiness that stole over me — how beau
tiful that sleep. Alas, but it was a long one, too."
********

The first streaks of pink dawn were mellowing the east,
when Laddie moved. The cigar was still in his hand.
He jumped up with a groan of pain. His feet were sore,
his muscles lame and stiff. The pot of coffee was still
warm upon the embers. He swallowed a quantity and
jumped into his wet clothes. The operation was a pain
ful one, putting it with studied mildness. Then he
grasped the hand of the Spanish gentleman, murmured
his gratitude, and dashed out into the dawn toward the
trail. He could see it now winding upward toward the
heights. He had missed it the night before by a quarter
of a mile.

52 The Degeneration of Laddie.

Laddie reached the summit. Ciales stood out upon
the cliffs a mile and a half away. And from the tiny vil
lage over the rocks and hills there was borne the first call
a soldier hears in the morning, the cheery reveille. Poor
Laddie groaned. He did not hurry after that.

The troopers were at breakfast when he reached the
quarters. The top-sergeant met him with certain phrases
of English which would look strange if reproduced, and
then went with him to the commanding officer. The cap
tain told Laddie, among other things, that he was a dis
grace to his country, and ordered him looked up. The
prisoner wearily moved his bunk over to the Spanish jail,
and rested all the rest of the day. Then he commenced
to think. That evening when Kruger, a Hoosier recruit,
brought Laddie's supper over to the jail, he found that the
prisoner had become solid with the Spanish policemen
already — solid to such an extent that they had allowed
him to stroll in the plaza and watch the sunset. It is
pretty to see the sun sink beyond the mountains away up
there in Ciales. And Kruger, the Hoosier recruit, told
the top-sergeant how solid Laddie was with the Spanish
policemen — all of which caused the top to be very angry
and much trouble for the prisoner. The latter spent the
night in thought.

********

On the morning of the second day after this, they
found that Laddie's bunk was empty, except for the fol
lowing letter, which was characteristic :

The Degeneration of Laddie. 53

"Dear Captain — My chief regret in taking this step is
that I do so while the features of Kruger, the Hoosier
child, are still intact. If a dirty word is written next to
my name in the troop books, it is because there is no al
ternative. I believe that it is the desire of those above
me to omit my name from roll calls.

"I make no rash promises about being dead when re
taken, if any such unfortunate circumstance should oc
cur. I could not wait for a legitimate discharge, because
the vermin here have got me bluffed. And besides, I am
afraid of the noisome la viruella (smallpox). My fellow
convict was taken away with it this morning. He was
quite a gentleman, by the way.

"Pure Castilians walk through my apartments with
their noses in a sling. They walk through rapidly. I
have not that privilege. I did not consult the worthy
Porto Rican policia before leaving. Had I done so they
would probably have wished me godspeed.

"I have enjoyed the service. I have met some right
royal good fellows. I have not the space nor the com
mand of English to write concerning some others. I
have several sore toes, and a painful remembrance of the
Manati fords. I hate to face my mother.

"Here's looking at you all. I do this with no rum in
my brain. May you all serve your thirty years and live
happily ever afterwards in the soldiers' home, and may I
reach God's country *>efore I'm twenty-one.

"Lovingly, LADDIE."

Toreador, the Game One.

TOREADOR, THE GAME ONE.

Only two things in this world did Benito, the poor
Porto Rican, love. One was Marie, who lived with her
mother in a tiny shack away up in the mountains, and the
other was Toreador, a very fancy, very trim and very,
very game little red chicken.

Now, Sunday is market day in that little tropical island,
and the natives bring their wares to the plazas of the vil
lages. Then in loud voices they tell the passers-by just
how good and cheap their things are. And every Sun
day morning Marie used to trip down the trail into Cori-
zel, with a basket of sweetmeats upon her head, and then
she would cry : "Cocoa de dulce ! Cocoa de dulce !" until
her apron was heavy, and jingled with big centavos, and
all the sweetmeats were gone.

Benito would lavish his single centavo for a piece of
Marie's sweets, but mostly he cared for the smile from
Marie's dark, pretty eyes, which she always gave him.
When Marie called aloud, "Cocoa de dulce," Benito
thought that it was the sweetest sound he had ever heard,
and after Marie's cute figure was lost in the coffee shrubs
which bordered the trail, Benito would sigh and walk

58 Toreador, the Game One.

back to his little room in the poorest and shabbiest of all
the poverty shacks in the district. Then he would di
vide the cocoanut sweets with Toreador, telling the game
one all the while how wonderfully sweet and pretty was
the maiden whom he gazed at so long every Sunday.

Now, Toreador had blood in his veins as blue as the
ocean at night. He was only a baby bird, but his race
dated back to the time when Castilians ruled the world
and owned most of it. Toreador was the scion of the
gamest fighting stock ever pitted in that land of fair seno-
ritas and fancy cocks. Toreador had gaffs as sharp as a
surgeon's lance and as tough as ivory. Muscles were on
his body as hard as steel nails. He had a wicked beak
and a long, thick neck — a typical fighting neck, and
brownish black eyes so bright that they shone like elec
tric sparks.

Toreador's father was a champion of other days.
Everybody for miles around Corizel knew the record and
pedigree of this bird, and everybody envied the rich
Spanish planter who owned him, because many were the
pesos which the gamecock piled up for him every Sun
day. Now Benito had seen the doughty chicken's last
fight, after he had laid low five other birds in two hours.
He was fighting in the dark, for the spark had run out
of both his eyes. And no one was sadder than Benito
when the great battle was over and the head of Torea
dor's splendid sire dropped into the dust of the pit and
rested there.

The mother of Benito's bird was as trim and fancy a

Toreador, the Game One. 59

lady as ever strutted about a fresh-laid egg. No one but
Benito knew of Toreador's illustrious parentage, and no
one but Benito knew how the tiny chicken became pos
sessed by the poor Porto Rican. One morning the little
brothers and sisters of the artistocratic brood missed one
of their number, and the mighty el capitan of the Ameri
can soldiers, who owned them all, likewise missed the
youngster, whom Benito called Toreador and learned to
love. That was all there was to it.

In the days that follow Marie grew more pretty to
Benito's eyes, and the game one grew strong and hard
ened.

Time came when Benito could no longer wait for Sun
days in order that he might see the little dark-eyed
maiden who parted her red lips in a smile for him. So,
one evening, he crept up the trail toward the little high
land shack of Marie and her mother, and watched while
the moon rose. Away up in the northland where the
American soldiers came from and lingeringly talked
about, it was winter; but the night was warm where
Benito was, and the breezes of evening were as soft as
only breezes are, and they were laden with the perfume
of orange groves wild and vast. The moon rose into the
heights and candles glinted in the village down in the val
ley. Meanwhile Benito watched, and the little Corizel
River purled and tinkled on its way to join the Rio
Grande.

And when the moon was so bright and big that its
white radiance dimmed the stars, Marie came out of the

60 Toreador, the Game One.

doorway and turned her face upward. Then she sang to
the great, white beauty of the heavens — she sang of love's
enchantment, and every note was a rapture to the poor
Porto Rican who watched. It seemed to him one mo
ment that his heart must burst, so big was it. Then Marie
sang soft and low of slumber, and the tinkle of the tiny
Corizel was hushed when the slumber song was ended.
The aged mother of the dark-eyed maiden sat with
drowsy eyes in the doorway, biding her time.

Next Sunday Marie smiled upon Benito prettier than
ever, for she saw that he had a faint look, and that his
face was very wan and ashy for a Porto Rican's. She
did not know that he had been toiling from dawn to
dark for six days, prodding weary oxen over the rocky
trail between a big hacienda and Corizel, carrying tons of
green coffee. She did not know that he had not eaten
enough in those six days to satisfy the game one, nor that
he had four bright silver pesos hidden away in his shabby
shack. Marie did not know that his four silver pesos and
his starvation were for her. But somehow she smiled
upon him very sweetly that Sunday. Perhaps it was be
cause she pitied his wan face. And, oh, how happy was
Benito, the poor Porto Rican, that day.

A week passed and there were four more silver pesos
hidden away in the dingy shack, and Marie did not see
Benito this Sunday. Strange things were going on in
his hut. Toreador was trimmed for action, like the decks
of great fighting ships are. The green and copper-hued
feathers of Toreador's neck were cut away. His wings

Toreador, the Game One. .61

were clipped, and his limbs and breast laid bare. Then
very skillfully, very carefully, Benito scraped and sharp
ened the gaffs of the game one until they shone like the
sabers of American cavalrymen and were as keen as
needlepoints.

All the while Toreador clucked and scolded angrily.
Never before did his brownish-black eyes gleam with
such wicked intensity, and never before did Benito see a
bird in such splendid fighting form as was his own little
game one, as he strutted about the shack and scolded.

When all the preparations were over, Benito wrapped
his eight silver pesos in a cloth, and with the game one
under his arm he walked across the town to the cock-pit.
Toreador had no experience — only instinct. He was
matched against a fancy gray chicken who had won bat
tles before. But the gray chicken never won another,
because Toreador, somewhat scratched, but with two
eyes and much nerve and wind, crowed lustily while the
other was weakly pounding the turf with both wings and
a bleeding crest. Marie was gone from the plaza when
Benito returned, but he was never so happy before, since
he had twice as many pesos as when he started, and he
was nearer to the day when he might tell Marie's old
mother where his heart was, without shame.

So time passed and Benito's handkerchief became
heavier and heavier, while Toreador added craft to his in
stinct and honor to his race. And Benito alone knew the
stock from which his game one sprung.

At last the great day dawned.

62 Toreador, the Game One.

Now it was very natural that the captain of the Ameri
can soldiers should hear of the fame which a certain ple-
bian bird was making, and straightway he sought out
the poor native who owned this bird, and fixed a day
when he should match his high-born Morro with the
dauntless Toreador.

The great day was fixed — the day that would make
Benito rich enough to speak to Marie's mother, or so
poor that he would long for death.

Thus it was that Toreador, whom men called the peer
less plebeian, met the mighty Morro, and great, indeed,
was the battle. So nearly alike were the two birds that
Benito found it necessary to distinguish Toreador by a
ribbon on his left ankle. Men marveled at the likeness
between the two birds, and trembled when they thought
how terrible the battle would be. The American captain
hired a native to train his bird. Benito and this man
stood alone in the pit. Each held a chicken under his
arm. The cocks were quivering, straining, clucking low
and defiantly. The wagers were made; the birds were
cooled with an icy spray, and the big cock-pit became as
silent as the great white cliffs above.

Benito never could tell what he did the next hour. It
was a lifetime for him. His face mirrored the agony, the
struggles, the determination of his game one. He thought
not of Marie, not of the little fortune he would win or
lose. He thought only, lived only for the doughty Spar
tan, whom he had reared from a chick, and who was try
ing to live under the onslaught of a worthy foe.

Toreador, the Game One. 63

Toreador did not feel Morro's keen gaff as it dark
ened one side of his head one whit more than did Benito ;
and the heart of the poor Porto Rican grew cold. Ah,
yes, Morro was a worthy foe, but Toreador had not weak
ened yet. The American captain's chicken hugged
closely to Toreador's dark side and stabbed often and
deep. At last the birds went into the air. There were
thrusts that moment which no one saw. And when the
rivals landed, Morro could not keep his feet. He sank
to his breast, then slowly, very slowly, his beak dropped
toward the turf.

Toreador did not crow. He was staggering, pecking
wildly at thin air. Both sides were dark now. Toreador
did not know that he had won his last battle. And as
the great shout went up for the winning bird, not a soul
thought that Toreador had laid his own brother low.

That night Benitoi walked up the trail toward the
shack of Marie and her mother. Twilight had dimmed
the sunset land. Over in the low southeast the moon was
rising.

Benito was not so happy as he dreamed he would be
this moment, yet he was rich now, and yearned to see the
little dark-eyed maiden of the highland shack. He
thought of the songs she had sung that night, while she
gazed up into the twinkling heights. He thought of
Toreador, stiff and wounded, back in the town.

Farther up toward the cliffs he could see the shadowy
outline of Marie's home. The night was falling upon it,
and the tiny Corizel tinkled among the big stones. More

64 Toreador, the Game One.

and more of the rocky trail was silently left behind. Very
cautiously he emerged from the coffee shrubs a few rods
from the shack. He was weak; his breath came fast.
The big bag of silver pesos seemed very heavy.

And as Benito's eyes peered through the dark he saw
the little maiden whom he loved. The arms of a big
American cavalryman were around her, and she was
smiling into his eyes.

Then Benito crawled back toward the lights of the vil
lage. The heavy bag of silver pesos lay by a big stone at
the edge of the trail.

Down in Benito's shack, Toreador, sore and blinded,
dreamed of the battle he had won.

But the story of Benito, the poor Porto Rican, is not
ended.

The Wooing of Benito.

THE WOOING OF BEN1TO.

Silk Redmond, cavalryman through necessity, and pri
vate of course, sat on the porch of an old banana-house,
high up in the interior of Porto Rico. For a trooper, he
sadly exerted his brain. It was very foolish for a man
in Redmond's position to think at all. It seemed ages to
him since patriotic proclivities went quivering through
the land and the bodies and souls of callow young men.
Then, for the first time in Redmond's life, he had been
close enough to the world to discover how threadbare it
was worn in some places.

Redmond had just emerged from college. There was
a classical unsophistication about him. The youngster
who blackened his boots might have given him all kinds
of points concerning mundane matters — then. Redmond
could have composed an astronomical essay with ease
and effect, but he couldn't dash off a murder yarn and
make an edition for anything short of a weekly paper.
Theoretically, he would have made a fast lawyer, but in
practice it would have meant incarceration for a poor
devil, whose jag had been officially spoiled, to trust to his
pleading in police court.

70 The Wooing of Benito.

Silk Redmond needed to be polished off with that sort
of jagged pumice which a man gets only by brushing
about city streets — and in Uncle Sam's service.

As the tall trooper sat on the porch of the old banana-
house, with his toughened cavalry legs hanging over, he
mused savagely on the days when he had a grudge against
himself — those days when he tried to work off patriotic
chills and fever, and be a civilian still.

Turning his back upon college days and a pretty girl,
Redmond plunged southward to join his regiment; and
not until he sat on the dirty deck of a transport, smoking
a very black pipe, and watching the officers up on the
spotless bridge, where he dare set foot only at the price
of his liberty, did Silk Redmond get time to think. And
at night, away up north, a little college girl had com
pleted her studies for the day, and was thinking of a big,
noble soldier fellow ; and often her eyelids were moist ere
her student lamp flickered and sputtered out. But she
did not write because she had a mind of her own, this lit
tle college girl, and she had told a certain big fellow that
he was many kinds of a chump to chase away from his
prospects, and everybody who liked him, when there was
no show of his ever getting shot at, anyway.

********

Mail had come in from the States that day, but there
was no letter from the little college town. It was even
ing now. A disgusted cavalryman swung down from
the porch of the old banana-house, answered retreat in a
surly tone, and then strolled up the rocky trail toward a

The Wooing of Benho. 71

tiny shack where a dark-eyed maiden lived. Now Silk
Redmond did this to get even with himself and the col
lege girl. His heart was not with the little dark-eyed
maiden, whose name was Marie, but far away in the
northland. Redmond was not happy as he panted up the
steep trail.

The village of Corizel was in the valley below him, and
the little Corizel River splashed down the mountain side,
passed by the village and tinkled on toward the Rio
Grande. No cavalryman dared enter that village toward
which the river was spreading. Hideous la viruela was
there — smallpox, the Americans called it. A quarantine
hung over the whole valley. That was why Uncle Sam's
cavalrymen were quartered in the old banana-house, two
miles beyond the village.

Marie had dark, Spanish eyes, cute smiles and ways,
the prettiest of red lips and the tiniest of white teeth ; but
somehow Silk Redmond was gloomy that night. He
could think only of the other maiden away up in the
northlabd, where the white faces and the great cities were
— the maiden of the little college town, who would not
write to him because he was a trooper.

Together they stood, the trooper and Marie, in the
moonlight, in front of the highland shack. The great
white cliffs rose up above them ; and as they stood there
with the white moonbeams resting upon their faces, Silk
Redmond kissed the little dark-eyed maiden, because it
was the proper thing for a trooper to do at such a junc
ture.

7* The Wooing of Benito.

And at that moment the heart of Benito, the poor Porto
Rican, was almost broken.

It must be remembered that Benito, who lived in the
poorest and shabbiest of all the poverty shacks in Cori-
zel, had loved Marie long and dearly. And on Sundays
in the plaza, the little dark-eyed maiden had often smiled
sweetly upon him. Now Benito never told Marie that he
loved her, yet all the while he was starving and slaving
so that some day he might have money enough to tell
her without shame.

Then it was that Toreador, the game one, the fanciest
of fighting cocks, whom Benito had reared from a tiny
chick, met the mighty Morro in the cock-pit, and laid him
low. And many were the silver pesos which Toreador
won for Benito that day. But the game one could never
be pitted again, for the gaffs of the mighty Morro had
darkened the spark in both his eyes.

Let it be known, too, that Benito, no longer poor after
the battle, had crept up the trail toward Marie's shack in
the shadow of the great white cliffs. A big bag of silver
pesos was in his hand. Benito was sad because the splen
did Toreador, whom he loved next to Marie, must live
always in darkness after that day. Had not Toreador
given his eyes that he might have Marie? But Benito
thought also, as he crept up the trail, of the little dark-
eyed maiden, and of joys sweet and lasting.

Slowly, very slowly, Benito crawled down once more.
He had seen Marie's laughing eyes as the big cavalryman
kissed her lips in the moonlight. His brain conceived no

The Wooing of Benito. 73

thought of vengeance that moment, but, oh, how it
throbbed and burned !

It was not long after that when Silk Redmond kicked
his foot against a big bag of silver pesos as he hastened
down the trail. He whistled softly and marveled. The
cavalryman had not been paid for two months, but,
strangely enough, the idea did not occur to Redmond to
buy bottles of rum, by which he might make himself for
ever solid with his fellow troopers. He was not an old
enough cavalryman for that.

Rapidly the tall trooper trotted down the trail. Indis
tinctly among the shadows and moonbeams ahead Silk
Redmond saw a dark form creeping slowly toward the
village. Softly he followed, clinging to the bag of silver.

Was it a sob that he faintly heard above the splashing
of the Corizel ? Anyway, the tall trooper forgot that taps
would sound in a half hour and that cavalrymen are sup
posed to be in their bunks when the bugle notes are
ended. He disregarded the stern order about entering
the town, and cautiously followed the dark figure to the
shabbiest of all shacks in the poverty district of Corizel —
followed him through the very lurking-places of the noi
some la viruela. And at last Silk Redmond saw Benito
push open the door of his dingy hut and disappear.

Then the big cavalryman heard a piteous sound. It
was the weeping of a man whose heart was breaking —
poor, harmless Benito!

It was a queer moment for Trooper Redmond. There
was no light but that of the moon within the shack, and

74 The Wooing of Benito.

when the big soldier peered in he saw the bowed head of
the Porto Rican, trembling in sorrow. And Toreador,
with hurting wounds and shrunken eyes, drowsed and
dreamed in the dark.

A thought crept into the head of Silk Redmond. It
caused him to chase over to a store. It made him pur
chase a candle and return to the hut of Benito. And
everybody stared hard at the tall trooper as he passed
by. They knew that he had no right to be walking the
streets of quarantined Corizel.

"I'm going to find out what that poor devil is 'loco'
about," muttered Redmond as he tapped at the door of
the shack. He held the bag of silver in one hand. In
silence and solemnity the cavalryman lit the candle, and
looked into the eyes of the Porto Rican. They were great,
dark eyes, staring in wonderment and grief, and lustrous
with tears. They moved piteously from the bag of silver
to the face of the cavalryman, who came from the great
land over in the northwest beyond the sea, and they grew
more lustrous with tears.

Then the two talked in Spanish for many minutes.
Something that was in the heart of the tall trooper —
something which shone out of his eyes — soothed the sor
row of the poor Porto Rican as he told the story of
Toreador, the game one, and of Marie, who lived with her
mother away up toward the great white cliffs.

And one time Silk Redmond had to turn his face away
so the other might not see that something which was
in his eyes, for it was something which did not look well

The Wooing of Benito. 75

in the eyes of a big cavalryman. Before leaving the shack
Silk Redmond spoke these words in Spanish :

"Look pleasant, and do as I say, and we'll manage
about the senorita. Meet me half way up the trail to
morrow at two. Fasten a grin on your face now, even if it
is painful, and go to sleep. I'll do the rest, and don't let
that bag of money go kicking around any old trail. Keep
close to that and the grin, and I'll make you the man of
that shack up there where Marie and her old woman
live."

A half-hour later the tall trooper had stolen past the
guard and crawled into his bunk. Then he lighted a very
black pipe and began to think of young men and maid
ens, light and dark. And back in the college town one of
the young lady students tore up a letter addressed to a
big soldier, because the last page had wet spots upon it.

For six afternoons Redmond met the Porto Rican and
stood over him while the latter choked down great quan
tities of manhood in the form of army rations.

"Get outside of those beans, they'll make a man of you.
Assimilate that hunk of sow-belly, it'll sparkle in your
blood." These remarks dropped out with puffs from a
very black pipe.

On the sixth day Redmond brought with him a cake
of "government bouquet" and a clean shirt. Then he
administered unto Benito a thorough scrubbing down in
the Corizel, and finally groomed him up nicely in the shirt
of army blue. Puffing meanwhile, the tall trooper sur-

76 The Wooing of Benito.

veyed his job and was satisfied. That evening the two
walked together on the trail toward the highland shack.

And there was the same old smile for Benito. He had
a well-fed, natty look, which surprised her. Silk Red
mond was silent through the heavy effort of his brain.

"The American el capitan is a mighty man," he sug
gested finally. Benito and Marie were of the same opin
ion. Then the tall trooper took Marie out into the moon
light and told her many things which we all know. Mean
while Benito clung to his grin and money-bag, and shed
abroad mild Spanish commonplaces for the benefit of
Marie's old mother.

"The American el capitan has made up his mind," con
tinued Redmond, once more in the shack, "that Benito,
my friend, has arrived at sufficient property and years, to
hitch his fortunes to some pretty senorita. The captain
has appointed me to pick out the maid." The tall trooper
said all these things in Spanish.

"I have written concerning the matter to my wife," he
resumed, seriously. The immensity of his fabrications
tickled his throat. Marie puckered up her red lips re
proachfully. "My wife, who is a very learned woman,
says that Benito and Marie are twin souls, and so it must
be. I will leave you now, my children "

Benito clutched at a grin, but it was a pathetic one,
and with hands that trembled, he placed the bag of silver
pesos in the lap of his twin soul. The little maiden
pouted at the tall trooper as he disappeared.

Before the night that Silk Redmond sank down on his

The Wooing of Benito. 77

bunk with deathly pains in his head and back, he had the
satisfaction to learn from Benito's own lips that Toreador,
the game one, would shortly be moved up to the shack in
the shadow of the great white cliffs.

Not many days afterward the troop commander tele
graphed back to the States that Private Redmond was
lying very low with smallpox. That very night, the girl
who lived in the college town wrote a long letter to her
big trooper. There were wet spots on every page, but
she sent it, anyway.

And that letter was read to the sick soldier by a com
rade in the hospital corps six days afterward. It made
the tall trooper feel so strong that he lit a very black pipe
for the first time in many days.

And now Toreador drowses in the darkness and dreams
of the battles he has won, in the shack of Marie and Be
nito, far up on the trail. And in the evening the old
mother of them both sits in the doorway, biding her time,
while the tiny Corizel tinkles on its way to join the Rio
Grande.

»

"She leaned her face down close to that of the cavalryman, so that he
might not also see."

Two Women and a Soldier.

TWO WOMEN AND A SOLDIER.

When you see a man of wit, culture and intelligence
in an awkward cavalry squad, learning the rudiments of
military symmetry, you may rest assured that a story
lurks behind his enlistment — that is, if the arts of peace
predominate in his land at the time. There are various
reasons why men enter the regular service. Chiefly among
these is the desire to live by as little work as possible,
and no worry. There are other men, of course, whose
personality has become odious in certain sections of the
country. These are not worried in the service, because
a soldier is judged by his animal worth, and not by the
enduring quality of his moral instinct. . . . You
would not find another like Yenning in the cavalry.

In a quiet way he showed his educational attainments.
To every man in the troop he also revealed a courtesy
which was high and inborn. Inasmuch as the new trooper
possessed the form of a Spartan warrior, and a face such
as the Greeks loved to picture for their gods, his fellow
cavalrymen bore with his infirmities of gentle breeding.

Earth is considerably remote from some stars. The
distance is not greater, however, than the distinction so-

82 Two Women and a Soldier.

cially between an enlisted man and a commissioned officer
of a troop. The fact is well known that it is a breach
of military etiquette for an officer to affiliate with a man
in the ranks. It is infinitely worse than a breach for an
officer's daughter to do this.

Unfortunately, the laws of nature are mightier than
army regulations, and ever since the world has been made
merry and sad by human attachments, young girls have
become desperate over handsome men.

Captain Bishop, the troop commander, was one of the
best pistol shots and one of the worst drunkards in the
army. Very natural it was for such a man to have a
pretty daughter. It was very natural, also, for Private
Yenning to be chosen orderly the first time he mounted
guard. His hose and equipments were perfect ; his cloth
ing was new and fitted him ; in short, he was the best
looking soldier in the detail. And the best looking sol
dier is usually chosen for orderly.

Now, it is the duty of the orderly to shadow his com
manding officer, to keep his chest thrown out, his chin
drawn in, and his mouth shut — and to obey orders until
relieved. Among other minor things which Venning did
the next day was to stand "at attention" for four hours
in a downtown cafe, while old Bishop waxed con
vivial toward himself and lenient toward men and things.
During the last hour the troop commander became so
popular that he felt called upon to buy drinks for every
body in the house, with the exception of his orderly,
of course. It would be decidedly unsoldierly for an offi-

Two Women and a Soldier. 83

cer to drink in the same place with his orderly. Old
Bishop was never unsoldierly.

The result was that Yenning became ugly and white;
in the first place, because a deep gash was rent in his
pride, and, secondly, because he lost his supper. All of
which shows he was not cut out for a common soldier.
Had Venning possessed the proper spirit of an orderly,
he would have rejoiced over his dry outing, and been
proud that his captain trusted him to the extent of dis
playing his weaknesses before him. It can be readily
seen how culture and education spoils the good soldier
in a man. Finally, Venning received the barely articulate
order to take his captain back to the post. There was
a look upon his handsome face which was far from
agreeable while the orderly helped his superior officer
into a cab.

There had been no Mrs. Captain Bishop since Nellie's
mother died, happy in her husband's oath of a reforma
tion, immediate and absolute. Nellie was the pretty
daughter.

It was quite late when the sentry at the entrance
of the post grounds challenged the carriage. At
this time Venning's military training only covered a pe
riod of six weeks, and it is not wonderful that he forgot all
about it, when the dark-eyed young woman whom he had
often seen on parade grounds tripped through the vesti
bule to the front door of the Bishop residence, where he
was standing.

"I am Orderly Venning, Miss Bishop," he said slowly.

84 Two Women and a Soldier.

"The captain is in the carriage. If you will show me
where his apartments are, I will help him there."

"Oh!" This was all that the orderly heard from the
young lady's lips. Many elements were in her mind that
moment. The splendid soldier whom she had so often
thought about .was before her. It was late. There was
no one but the servants in the house, and they were
asleep. She understood thoroughly the condition of her
father. Being an officer's daughter, she realized fully the
indignity to which this man had been subjected. She
felt too degraded for herself to pity Yenning. His voice
thrilled in her ears. She was a very young woman.

Yenning, the cavalryman, would have been a far dif
ferent fellow from Yenning, the civilian, had he failed
to understand the pressure of the moment. He thought
of a couple of circumstances which occurred when he was
not clothed in army blue. He thought of a bitter lesson
he had learned from a woman, who was neither so young
nor so innocent as the maiden who stood in the dimly
lighted vestibule. He thought how sweet and dainty the
captain's daughter looked. He was tingling still from
the shame in the cafe. Yenning never was a saint. He
had been a wooer many times, a student all his life, and a
gentleman at all times. He was very human, however.
He knew what was possible.

Captain Bishop was in a deep and noisy sleep. Nor
was he disturbed in any way when the orderly lifted him
from the carriage to his apartments. The young woman

Two Women and a Soldier. 85

led the way. Shame flushed her cheeks, and sorrow was
in her dark eyes. And Yenning pitied her.

"I will see that everything is cared for," he said, "and
I trust you believe, Miss Bishop, that no one will hear of
this."

She hastened down the stairway. Her hands trembled
and her eyes were very bright. This man talked to her
as an equal, she thought. He had such white, refined
hands — such a noble face! And his voice was so soft
and rich! Surely he was a good man and worthy, in
spite of army rules. Why should she be above anybody,
with a father like that — upstairs ? And Miss Bishop felt
an ominous smarting in her eyes, caused by all these
thoughts. Suddenly she remembered something and
sped into the kitchen.

Meanwhile the captain was disrobed by his orderly,
who had performed similar attentions to many of his
friends in civilian days, and knew the trick. His superior
officer was at length adjusted comfortably in his proper
place, and there was a queer smile upon the face of Yen
ning.

"What an old beast you are!" he muttered. "How
easily could I make you suffer for what you have done
this night — if I cared to !"

He turned the gas down low, and tip-toed to the stair
way. There he paused, listening. The thoughts in his
mind could not be described. He descended whistling,
whichnvas hardly relevant.

"Orderly!" The voice reached him from behind the

86 Two Women and a Soldier.

drawn shades of the dining room. It was the voice of a
young woman who is not certain that she is acting with
judgment. The word she had uttered filled Yenning with
thoughts which pained. For an instant he had forgot
ten that he was his captain's valet. The young woman
advanced timidly toward him.

That night, after the cavalryman had supped and de
parted, Miss Bishop crept into her father's room. The
gas had been lowered until its light did not equal the
blaze of a match. The captain was deeply unconscious.
Everything in the room was in perfect order.

"Oh, that he should have to do such things for you,"
murmured the young woman. Five minutes afterward
she was locked in her own apartments.

Meanwhile Yenning slipped past the sentries, and up
the iron stairway of the barracks to his cot. He stood
in the dark by the window rolling a cigarette. Over in
the captain's quarters, across the parade grounds, a light
was still shining upstairs. It was not in the captain's
room. When the cigarette- was so short that it burned
Venning's fingers -he light still shone in the officer's resi
dence. And so Trooper Yenning met the daughter of his
troop commander.

Four months later the command received orders to re
pair at once to a point of embarkation. American soldiers
were needed to simplify certain matters in Cuba. Al
most every day in those four months Yenning had re
ceived a letter, addressed in a woman's hand. Its post
mark bore the name of a Northern city.

Two Women and a Soldier. 87

In the deep shadow of an unused building, on the even
ing before the cavalrymen left for the front, there came
to the daughter of Venning's troop commander a sorrow
deep and lasting.

The captain was at the officers' club-rooms with the
other commissioned men. The barracks was brilliantly
lighted, and from its open windows Yenning and the
maiden could hear the songs of the soldiers. The night
before men leave for the front they are always merry —
as an aeronaut is before swinging off — because crowds
are watching. The cavalryman and captain's daughter
stood together at the wall of an old deserted barracks.
Above them a great tree whispered and sighed. The
man was vaguely conscious of the silent suffering in the
dark eyes of the girl — of her face which was white with
pain. He was conscious, too, of the moveless chill which
filled his breast; but, more than all, he felt a moral
strength in his brain which was strange and new. In
the branches above them there was a music, low and
mournful.

"Little girl," said the trooper, "I do not know what
has come over me. Somehow, I am a different fellow
to-night. If I had felt like this before I would never
have been a cavalryman, because I could have done no
wrong. . . . There, there, Nellie. I do not mean to
grieve you through any stories of those other days.
. . . I never thought I could hate myself so intensely
for them!

"I feel too black, little girl, to be near you to-night.

88 Two Women and a Soldier.

I cannot help it. There was a time when I laughed at
anybody who spoke of a love, strong and sweet and pure.
A man who sears and bruises his conscience for years
cannot tear the callous off in a night. I must be good !
I must do something hard ! I must get away from Ven-
ning, the animal !"

The young woman's head drooped toward the ground.
The man raised it gently with both his hands upon her
cheeks. His whole body seemed to be strained and tense
in his effort to control the trembling of his nerves. Only
a broken whisper came from his throat now.

"To-morrow we leave," he continued. "I will not
write to you yet. I may never come back to this post
or where you are. Little girl, I want you to be the same
sweet and pure Nellie who made a man like me love you,
and who made a man like me say such things as I have
said this night. And remember, had I not spoken such
words, my feelings would not be akin to the love which
is sacred and beautiful. . . . And, Nellie, when I
am man enough, you — shall — know — it !"

The branches of the great tree above them slowly
swayed in the night breeze, and their shadowy deeps were
full of sighings. The man and the maiden still lingered.
There is silence when hearts are speaking. The man
dared not touch his lips to those of the maiden, for his
strength was only human. The voices of the soldiers in
the barracks seemed far away now, and their laughter
was hushed. At last there floated out with the radiance
from the windows the strains of a mighty melody. The

Two Women and a Soldier. 89

voices of men, great and deep and vibrant with soul, were
raised in the hymn which soldiers love — "God Be With
You Till We Meet Again !"

And that night, in his cot, Yenning smoked many
cigarettes, and hoped that his troop would encounter
fierce action, bloody action, and much of it !

********

The pitiless Cuban sunshine was beating down from the
sky; and from the block-house on top of the hill death
flashed and screeched out of hot, dusty Mauser barrels.
A wavering line of blue gasped in the heat and choked
in the dust, but pushed upward toward the block-house —
falling, cursing, crawling, but always upward! Squares
of army blue cloth hung upon the barbed entanglements
on the hillside; and dark little men with haggard faces
and a strange language were prone in the trenches with
the soldiers of a Northern land. And to those men who
laid side by side in the trenches, international war had
lost its consequence.

When the afternoon was dimmed by the deepening
twilight, the block-house on the top of the hill had
changed hands. And the soldiers from the Northern land
who held it now were still panting from the greatness of
the deed. And when the twilight was darkened by the
tropical evening, the Red Cross men lighted their lan
terns and crept about the trenches, peering everywhere
for warmth and life.

Among those whom they found who were not cold was
Trooper Yenning.

90 Two Women and a Soldier.

Far below in the valley glinted the lights of Santiago,
and upon the hill an American battery was placing its
guns. To-morrow those guns would be uncased, and
their gaping mouths would roar for cannon meat. They
would dictate to the city down in the valley to-morrow.

When a man has only the life of a baby in his body,
when most of his blood and all his passion has trickled
out through a wound, and breathing is a burden because
he is so weary — then one's whole sense is that of con
science, and one's brain gropes about among things un
seen. Before Yenning slept that night he saw one bright
spot standing out from the gloom of the days he had
lived. He had been a wooer many times, but he had only
loved once. He had thought that purity and truth in a
woman's mind were only for the dreams of softer mo
ments. But the innocence of a young girl had revealed
to him that a mind can be human and beautiful as well.

As the wounded cavalryman lay in the darkness hardly
breathing, many ideas, long latent, were revealed to him.
He knew that the impulse of sacrifice, which he had acted
upon the last evening at the post, was worthy of every
atom of a man. He learned that in the love which man's
God smiles upon there is often a sacrifice, sad but just.
Before he slept that night he knew that he had done
what was best by the daughter of his captain. Against
this one action there hung in the balance the whole life
of a man of passion. Whether it was the years or the
deed of a moment which was found wanting only Ven-
ning and his Judge knew, but the sleep which came to the

Two Women and a Soldier. 91

wounded soldier that night on San Juan Hill brought
peace and strength.

A month afterward Yenning was much stronger. He
was in a big army hospital back in the States. His face
had always been one which a woman would remember.
It was handsome still, but white and drawn from suffer
ing.

A well-dressed woman was just stepping out of the of
fice at the entrance of the hospital grounds. She would
have attracted a man's eye anywhere. She was the same
who had written to Yenning so many times, since he had
been a soldier — the same who had caused him to become
one. A younger woman dressed in black and carrying a
hand-satchel entered the office at this moment. The one
who had just stepped out heard the other inquire timidly:

"Can you tell me what ward Private Yenning is in ?"

The older woman quickened her steps toward one of
the large tents at the far end of the grounds. Not long
afterwards she was sitting by the side of Venning's cot,
holding the soldier's hand. The man's eyelids were
closed ; the woman could hear him breathe. She believed
that he was very weak still.

"How did you get away?" Yenning asked. His throat
was dry and his words hoarsely uttered.

"He at last concluded that we were not for each other.
He was very gentlemanly about it — poor Teddy. You
are all mine now, Mister Soldier." The woman was smil
ing merrily.

"Do you mean that he has ?"

92 Two Women and a Soldier.

"Don't you dare to use that ugly word!" she inter
rupted. The afternoon was warm and the flags of the
tent were hung back. The sunlight rested upon the cov
erlet of Venning's cot and buried itself in the yellow hair
of the woman. She placed her hand tenderly upon the
soldier's forehead. His lips were white and smileless.
There was silence for a moment.

"Has any other woman visited you here?"

The cavalryman opened his eyes quickly. There was
pain in them, which the woman thought the wound
caused.

"No other woman has visited me here."

"Oh, how ill you are still, my poor soldier! Tell me,
tell me at once if you are sorry I came to you !"

The man did not answer at once. His eyes were closed.
He was silently suffering.

"I thought," the woman said slowly, "I thought that
when you got your sick furlough we would "

The face of the younger woman was at the far end of
the tent. Her dark, wide-open eyes mirrored the suffer
ing which was in her soul. For a moment she stood
there — the only girl who had ever sounded the depths in
the nature of her father's orderly.

And the woman who sat by Venning's side saw the look
which was upon the face of the maiden, and she leaned
her face down close to that of the wounded cavalryman,
so that he might not also see. Then she smiled sweetly,
for she had long since mastered the mysteries of maiden

Two Women and a Soldier. 93

hearts. Daintily she pressed a kiss upon the white lips
of the soldier.

And when the woman raised her head the maiden in
the opening was gone.

The nurse was taking the temperature of a fever pa
tient in the farther end of the tent.

'Don't touch him." It was a squaw's voice.

Red Brennan of the Seventh,

RED BRENNAN OF THE SEVENTH,

Dad Evans told the tale. He is an old cavalryman,
born with a saddle between his thighs — a soldier by tem
perament and a man instinctively. Old Dad has served
thirty years, but he was so miserable away from the troop
that they took him back in spite of his dimmed eyes and
chalky joints.

Rebellion memories are rampant in Dad Evans' mind.
He was a tough little bow-legged cavalryman then. A
dozen Indian fights are shown on his discharge papers.
And then he was one of those boys who left their horses
back in the States and pushed up the sand-soaked hills in
front of Santiago, the once coveted.

But there is one scene which Old Dad's eyes looked
upon when they were not dim — a scene which appears
again when his pipe is lit and his bunk is comfortable — a
scene and a story, which Dad Evans does not tell except
at the canteen, when his month's pay flows with his
words.

Then he will tell you about Rain-in-the-Face, the ugliest
of the Sioux, and the craftiest of red men, and about the
deserter from the ranks of Uncle Sam's horsemen who
was chained to him. He will tell you how Indians fight,

98 Red Brennan of the Seventh.

how impish was the fury of their squaws, how terrible
their numbers. And all cavalrymen forget the glasses in
their hands while Dad Evans tells how the field looked,
when he helped to bury the dead of Ouster's band way
out in Montana on that hot June day.

Ask any old cavalryman what kind of a fellow was the
Michigan man whom the Sioux called Yellow Hair. He
was a soldier they will say, not an indulgent officer, but
one who feared nothing living or dead. It was Custer
who declared:

"Give me my regiment and I will lick the whole Sioux
Nation."

Custer was tingling to make his name illustrious when
he uttered those words. He was confident, experienced —
a soldier born. He did not think then that his regiment
of horsemen would ever be called the "Unlucky Seventh."
But all this has been committed to memory by school chil
dren. Here is the story of Red Brennan, deserter, once
in I troop of Ouster's command, and long since dead — the
story which Dad Evans tells. It is a true story, for Dad
Evans, who saw it enacted, says so.

Brennan was a bad man. His worst enemies were
whisky and himself. His bunk was deserted one morn
ing at reveille roll-call, and his troop was detached to hunt
him up. The boys found him in a cave, to which they
were led by an Indian scout. Brennan was helplessly
obfuscated, probably through the medium of unmellowed
corn-juice. The Indian scout shuffled about the cave feel
ing and smelling things. There were puzzling circum-

Red Brennan of the Seventh. 99

stances about. Some one had been in the cave with Bren
nan, but the identity of this party was an opaque mystery.
Nothing but a can of bear's grease was found. Squaws
make their braids shiny with bear's grease. A soldier
suggested that Kate Poison-Water had perhaps taken
Brennan for her paramour.

When the prisoner staggered out of stupor, he was
chained to Rain-in-the-Face, sub-chief of the Sioux. At
first he uttered a series of ejaculations that would have
plunged an army mule into hysterics.

********

Kate Poison- Water was a sort of De Stael among the
Sioux. She was a serpent in cunning, a tigress in
strength and agility — a Sioux squaw in general deviltry.
It developed that Rain-in-the-Face knew her.

Custer was in a land ridden with red men. He had no
near reserve. It was not a time for courtmartials. Red
Brennan ate and slept, but did not become chummy with
the rising buck. They were together until the day when
Reno took part of the regiment and branched off to the
south. Rain-in-the-Face was taken with Reno, while
Brennan rejoined his troop in Ouster's division. It is
needless to say in whose command was Dad Evans, for
had he not been with Reno he would never have sipped
canteen beer and told stories these times, nor would he
have climbed Cuban hills under Mauser fire.

The guard in charge of the Sioux prisoner was mur
dered in the night. It was done so quietly that the sentry,
walking his post fifty yards away, heard no sound and

ioo Red Brennan of the Seventh.

saw nothing. Then Dad Evans told of a way the body
was mutilated — so horrible were his words that we turned
away shuddering.

"Only a squaw does the trick," Evans explained. "We
thought Kate Poison- Water had made possible the escape
of Rain-in-the-Face, because of the manner of the deed.
This idea grew upon us. Meanwhile, that day of history
dawned."

Ouster's command was four miles from Reno's camp.
Every trooper felt that there were hordes of red men in
the surrounding foothills. Not a white man guessed their
numbers. The Indian scouts were puzzled by cross trails.
They hugged the vanguard and could not be pushed
ahead. The troopers were attentive and quiet. No jests
were exchanged that morning. The sun rose high and
hot. The wind blew strong and fitfully. No steady or
rapid firing was distinguishable from any direction.
Reno's division formed skirmish lines. No. 4 in each set
stayed back with the horses. Ragged volleys were poured
down upon them from rocks and woody places. Few of
the fours lived when the sun's rays were slanting that
afternoon. Camp was struck at sundown. No bacon
sputtered in the mess tins, and weary soldiers rolled them
selves in their blankets without a smoke that night. The
Red Cross men did not sleep.

No one believed the courier who rode into camp before
midnight, with the word that Custer and all his band had
been slain that day by the Sioux, and that their bodies
lay scattered about in the moonlight four miles away.

Red Brennan of the Seventh. 101

Before daybreak Renews men were on the march. The
silence in front was deathly and ominous. Wary and
cautious was the advance. The weird, crooning mono
tone of the Indian death song was not heard, nor were
cross trails encountered this day. The turf was marked
with mute indications of a hasty flight. The scouts hugged
closely the forward fours. The silence frightened them.
An odor was in the air which they alone distinguished.
White men cannot use their noses like animals.

The body of a trooper, gashed, perforated and dismem
bered, was strewn across the line of march. Hard and
unsmiling were the faces of Reno's cavalrymen now.
Signals from high points brought back no answer from
Ouster's corps. The troops paused again to cover up red
stains upon the earth. The words of the courier were
now partially believed. Great and awful thoughts were
crawling into the soldiers' minds. Where was Yellow
Hair, the intrepid, the invincible? Where were the friends
of yesterday ?

More blood in the path. Tainted was the air that men
breathed and ghastly white their faces.

A low hill stretched before them. Upon its summit
shimmered the pitiless heat. Flies buzzed about the
sweating horses, and great, black birds made circling
shadows beyond the hill.

Soldiers tried not to breathe the sickening air, yet they
advanced. Horror and fascination enthralled them.
Countless red devils might be marshaling in the surround
ing hills, yet the most despicable of cowards would have

102 Red Brennan of the Seventh.

pressed upward that day. Still persons claim to be above
that curiosity which is morbid. The vanguard rode upon
the summit of the hill and looked down.

For a moment all that could be heard was the droning
of the myriad insect wings. Then to the ears of the rear
troopers was borne the murmur of curses deep and dread
ful.

From every bush arrows had whizzed down upon that
plain. From behind every rock and tree a crouching
Sioux had glared through the smoke of powder. Squads
of painted, yelling, exultant fiends had ridden down every
passable place on the hills — yesterday.

And when the braves had left no horse or horseman
standing, young bucks trampled the white faces into the
earth and fired into the prone bodies. And when their
voices were hoarse and broken, and their demon desires
satiated, the hideous, mumbling squaws, more inhuman
than any in venomous hate, had stripped the suits of army
blue from the boys no longer in Uncle Sam's service.
Then, in hellish ecstasy, they used their knives.

Meanwhile the braves wrapped up their dead in blankets
and tied them in the branches of larger trees. Not until
the sunset land was growing dim did the red men face
toward it and disappear. They were very happy.

Reno's cavalrymen looked down. Great, black birds
rose and hovered over the plain. The sky above the hills
was dotted with others — coming. Dad Evans will never
forget that day.

Not a vestige of individuality remained with the dead

Red Brennan of the Seventh. 103

upon the plain. There was not a scalp — not a form left
intact, save two. So diabolical was the work that it
seemed as if the devil in a black humor had directed it.
Dad Evans told things that would not do here.

In the centre of the plain they found a prone body that
had not been stripped or mutilated. The broad yellow
stripe of a cavalry officer was upon the trousers. An of
ficer's blouse covered the face. The Sioux warriors had
crossed the sleeves as a sign that the body should be
spared. The blouse was lifted and then the men saw the
bold, lean face of their commanding officer. The cheek
was pressed down, and the long, light brown curls clus
tered about it. Not a hair was touched, not a weapon
taken.

The Sioux braves feared the living Yellow Hair. They
revered him dead. It was a moment of delicate mystery.
Thus it was that his own men found Custer, the soldier
from Michigan. And not long afterward a little Mich
igan town was shrouded in crepe. The black draperies
have been lifted these many years, but its sable shadow
still rests in the hearts of the people.

Not a scalp was left save two. There was another.

"Don't touch him !" It was a squaw's voice. She was
wounded, crazed, dying. She raised her body on one
hand and fought off Reno's cavalrymen. Below her was
another body with sleeves crossed. It was all that re
mained of Red Brennan, deserter, and the dying squaw,
Kate Poison- Water, was fighting for it.

Side by side almost lay the commanding officer and

IO4 Red Brennan of the Seventh.

the man from the ranks, a deserter once. These alone
out of many troops had been untouched by the Sioux
squaws.

Kate Poison- Water slew the guard and released Rain-
in-the-Face, the soldiers say, so that the sub-chief might
have Red Brennan spared in the projected attack. None
but the Great Spirit, however, could have saved Red
Brennan that day.

Yes, the Sioux was a happy nation when they re
treated. Their craft was not forgotten and the trails di
verged. One was two miles wide. What squadron of
cavalry could follow such a trail ?

Rain-in-the-Face, sub-chief of the victorious Sioux,
lived to glower into the faces of distinguished Eastern
audiences.

And old Dad Evans, who helped to bury the dead
among feasting vultures on that hot June day, still sips
canteen beer and tells stories.

A Soldier of Misfortune.

A SOLDIER OF MISFORTUNE.

Nobody loved Duffie. Anyway not until he went to
Porto Rico. None of the boys cared a rap for him even
then. Yet Duffie was a good soldier — a man who is al
ways sober enough to answer calls, keep his equipments
polished, and his face shaved is a good soldier. At
least from an officer's point of view, and that's what
counts. But like many another choice spirit, Private Duf
fie was totally devoid of those twin faculties, which show
off one's better side and make friends. And since this
trooper possessed the added misfortune of being ugly to
look upon, his fellow soldiers took no trouble to sound
him for a better side.

Duffie had never been able to say the proper thing at
the proper time, so he did what was next best — kept his
mouth shut. This became a habit with him in early life.
Now a silent man is not wanted for a "bunkie" in Uncle
Sam's cavalry.

Duffie gambled also — a soldierly trait, and one which
would hurt no man's reputation in his troop, but since he
won calmly, steadily and silently, he was not asked to sit
at every pay-day game. Next to Duffie's silence, his worst

no A Soldier of Misfortune.

trait in the trooper's eyes was that he did not spend his
gains.

And the natural sequence of all these things was that
not one of his eighty-odd fellows shed tears when Duffle
left the troop with his final statements in his pocket, and
a record of thirteen years in the service — thirteen honest,
faithful, clean years. It was not until Duffle and his
bundle were lost in the coffee shrubs which bordered the
trail down into Corizel that the troop clerk told one of the
sergeants that Duffle's final statements called for a cool
thousand, Americano Diner o. When the men heard this
they told each other that they were well rid of Duff, his
"system," his silence, and his "ugly phiz."

As a matter of fact, Duffle's gambling methods were as
honest as his clear, gray eyes. And if his other two five-
year enlistments had been looked up his old fellows
would have said that he quit their outfits with only a
month's pay in his clothes; and that he was as hopeless
a drunkard and as reckless a spender as any good trooper
is supposed to be. They would say, too, that he left few
friends and no debts behind.

Duffle, walking down the trail, communed with him
self and was not unhappy. On his discharge paper, after
the printed word "CHARACTER" his captain had written
"excellent," and the troop physician had scrawled the same
word after "PHYSICAL CONDITION WHEN DISCHARGED/'
By the paper we might learn also that his hair was red,
his eyes gray and his age thirty-five. And everybody

A Soldier of Misfortune. in

knows that Duffie upon showing his discharge, could re-
enlist in any outfit in the service.

This wasn't his idea. He had money. He vowed that
he would touch no drink until he reached the States —
hence he would have money then — enough to be a civilian.
But there was a secret in the brain of the discharged
cavalryman that day — a pleasant, thrilling secret, more
important by far than the finals which would be cashed in
San Juan, more important than the captain's estimate of
his character. It was the secret which creeps into the
brain and heart of every soldier some day; and many
are the army men who would have died in the Soldiers'
Home were it not for its spell.

Now any person who has been in Porto Rico will tell
you that the native senoritas have wonderful eyes. The
American soldier who did not become impressed with
this fact during his first hour on shore, was either on
sick report at the time or else he landed in the night. A
close observer will tell you also that the wonderful eyes
of the Porto Rican senoritas dwell lingeringly upon the
length and breadth and toughness of American manhood
clad in army blue. All of which couldn't be otherwise.

The point is that Senorita Euphrasie, the dark, delicate
and dreamy-eyed, should look into the plain face of
Trooper Duffle, and care to look again. This was strange,
certainly. Perhaps the Corizel maiden saw something in
those clear, gray eyes which no American woman, save
the mother of her boy, had ever seen; something which
no fellow-trooper cared to know about, since Duffie was

ii2 A Soldier of Misfortune.

too clumsy of speech to speak what was in him. Gradu
ally in the cavalryman's brain the secret grew. It impart
ed a sensation, which the lonely trooper never dreamed
would come to him. For Duffie knew he was not hand
some to look upon. It made him feel less of a drunkard
and more of a man. It made him hate the service in time
of peace — a woman's influence has done this ever since
armies have been. In short, this secret buoyed up to sur
face water all the brighter, better elements in Duffie's
nature. And Senorita Euphrasie saw the brighter side,
knew that it was for her — and was a very happy little
maiden.

Meanwhile Duffie's halting tongue struggled with
Spanish expressions, but her eyes told Euphrasie more
which she wanted to know; and in her turn, Euphrasie
repeated English words from the cavalryman's lips —
words which those lips had never uttered before. And
the day drew nearer which would end Duffie's "soldier
ing" forever.

The one desire of the discharged trooper as he descend
ed the trail into Corizel — apart from the will and pleasure
of Senorita Euphrasie — was to see once more his native
land. This is the heart's desire of every trooper and in
fantryman in Porto Rico to-day! That afternoon, when
for the first time in three years he was a free man, Duffie
told the Corizel maiden of the wonderful land over the
sea, of the great cities, and of the white, frozen showers
which fall in the Northland. He told her of his old
mother who would love her, even as she loved her son.

A Soldier of Misfortune. 113

Poor Duffie did not know well of that which he spoke.
And Euphrasie believed his words. She would have fol
lowed him through the dreariest of the world's distances —
to his home.

Duffie will never forget the enchantment of that night.
Faintly from the quarters up the trail was borne the bugle
call for retreat. The man heard the distant scream of
the trumpet, but he only held Euphrasie closer. It was a
weird sensation for the soldier-no-longer. The sergeant
would not call his name that night. Duffie's heart held
no regret — it held nothing that moment but the image of
the woman into whose eyes he gazed, while the mount
ing moon scattered the twilight in the low southeast. How
happy would those two have been if the man felt not the
beckoning of his native shores, and the yearning of his
mother's heart!

The next day Euphrasie left Corizel and the orange-
perfumed slopes — lingered one last moment to listen to
the song of the mountain river, then journeyed thither
toward San Juan — el capital — with her husband.

A white man cannot disregard social usages where
other white men are. No, not even if he is a self-support
ing institution. It matters not the slightest whether a
man cares more for a look from his wife than for a grasp
upon the throttle of the mammoth social engine. If Duffie
had known the woes of the man who dares transgress
upon unconventional boundaries — the woes of even a poor
ex-soldier — he could not have been driven from the isl-

H4 A Soldier of Misfortune.

and where there are few white people, and therefore few
conventionalities.

It was hardly a question of color, for Euphrasie was
not dark. Indeed, had she possessed the power to sell the
richness and softness from her skin, she would have
realized enougfn to live luxuriously for life. But Eu
phrasie wore no hat, only a shawl. Her gowns were
very pretty for her own summer land, but they would
not have suited an American woman. She spoke little
English. But a thousand times worse than anything else
— she was the wife of a common enlisted man! And
there were wives of commissioned officers on the trans
port!

Everything was done so quickly in San Juan. A ship
bound for the States was in the harbor. Before Duffle
had cashed his finals, the sailing flag was hoisted. He
had barely time to get his wife on board. He realized
vaguely that Euphrasie needed woolen clothing and much
of it, before leaving a tropical island for a land of winter.
But how was he, who knew nothing which pertained not
to an enlisted man's life, supposed to realize in a moment
that there are such things as officers' wives and conven
tionalities on a transport?

Euphrasie was a timid maiden. So many soldiers
frightened her, and, worse than that, she perceived that
her husband was uneasy, too. His knowledge of Spanish
fled from him.

And the American ladies up on the pure white bridge,
and on the saloon deck, where none but the shoulder-

A Soldier of Misfortune. 115

strapped and their ladies walked — these women turned
their eyes from the Porto Rican city, which was vanish
ing behind harbor mists, and they saw the timid native
maiden, shrinking close to the form of a big enlisted man,
whose face was not pleasant.

Then one of these American ladies voiced the senti
ments of the rest — God forgive them — and it was the
master of the ship who was forced to hear her say that
she would not eat at the same table with any native
maiden; that she thought it was an outrage for an en
listed man to dare bring such a woman on a ship with
American ladies ; that she for one would at least see that
such a woman staid in the part of the ship she deserved.
The captain of the ship, being a commissioned officer, the
same as this lady's husband — well, what could he do but
admire Duffie's good taste and refuse him a state-room
for his wife? How could he furnish her meals the same
as saloon passengers ?

Far more than Euphrasie did the big ex-cavalryman,
the silent man, suffer, because the Corizel maiden had to
sleep down in the hammock-hold with the soldiers. Little,
indeed, did she mind eating army rations, for women in
her land eat little at best; but her husband's face grew
white when he thought of all these things, and there was
a nasty gleam in his gray eyes.

In a canvas hammock, down in the dirty hold of a
transport, surrounded by scores of men, rough and un
educated, lots of them — yet Euphrasie, the wife, was just
as safe as she ever had been among her own native hills.

Ti6 A Soldier of Misfortune.

Yes, they were rough and uneducated, lots of them, but
they were Americans and soldiers; and they had heard
what the women up on the bridge had told the master
of the ship.

In the forward hold the men cursed carelessly and
without restraint, cursed and gambled and sang soldier
songs ; but in the rear, where Euphrasie was, they walked
on tip-toe and talked in whispers while she slept. And the
ex-cavalryman who loved her, thanked his fellows one
and all with his eyes. The Porto Rican maiden was not
among gentlemen — they were all upon the saloon deck
with their ladies. Euphrasie's companions were only a
lot of common men from the ranks.

********

Everybody knows what a winter gale off Hatteras is.
The most treacherous bit of sea water on the Atlantic lies
here. Vessels from tropical isles veer hundreds of miles
seaward to avoid the Northern Carolina gales, and those
who have lived long under a torrid sun shrink from the
first blast of winter. Up on the bridge and saloon decks
the American ladies, wrapped in furs, emerged from their
state-rooms and set their faces toward the icy winds. And
Euphrasie in her summer gowns shivered and coughed
down in the chilly hold.

Duffie would tell her that there was no winter in the
great Southwest where his home was. And the dark,
dreamy eyes of the Corizel maiden would grow wondrous
bright when she heard her husband tell of his old mother,
who would love her, and of the little store they would

A Soldier of Misfortune. 117

start near some army post, and sell tobacco and cigarettes
and other things the soldiers liked. When no one was
looking Duffle would show his senora the great roll of
American money, with which he would buy her warm
clothing and lots of nice things in New York. There
would be no cold or suffering for Euphrasie after that !

When the hammock shook with the maiden's coughing,
as the transport tumbled along the Northern Carolina
coast, Duffle would wrap his big, yellow-lined cavalry
overcoat more closely about her throat, and his face be
came more haggard and white, but there was naught but
tenderness in his eyes now. Meanwhile, the gale grew
noisy, and ice thickened on the hurricane deck.

Two days' run from New York, and there was a dark
flush upon Euphrasie's cheek. Her forehead was burning,
and the soldiers stepped softly in the hold. And in the
night the Porto Rican maiden clung fast to her husband's
hand, and murmured words about Corizel and love. There
was a reddish glow in her dark eyes, like a flame shining
through a black density of smoke. They were turned
immovably upon the white, horrified face of her husband,
and she spoke his name.

About the time the ice-crusted ship was sighted off
the Atlantic Highlands two fever convalescents died of
pneumonia in the forward hold — died within sight of the
land of their soldier dreams.

And while the transport steamed around Sandy Hook
the hand of the Porto Rican maiden slipped from Duffle's
grasp.

n8 A Soldier of Misfortune.

The commissioned officers stood by the vessel's side in
the pier and kept the soldiers back until the American
ladies had tripped down the gangway. And one of the
ladies saw two gray eyes riveted upon her that wild win
ter's day. She remembered those eyes and the hideous
pallor of the man's face for many long nights afterward,
which was well.

What Duffie did the next ten days any soldier will
guess. At the end of that time he sent what money there
was left to his old mother down in Texas. And not long
after that he set out for the other side of the world to
join his regiment in Manila.

Such is the story of a flower from a summer land — a
flower which withered beneath the icy breath. And the
heart of Trooper Duffie, soldier of misfortune, withered
with it.

Shadow and the Cherub.

SHADOW AND THE CHERUB.

The first time I saw Shadow was the night the Fifth
pulled out for Porto Rico. Shadow was a dusky kid of
quality, and he now wears a cavalryman's blouse and a
shirt of army blue. How this came about involves the
prejudices of a nation.

Shadow was not old enough to be subservient. The
knowledge that he was black had never hurt him yet.
But his father was a son of slavery, and his father's
father, so in Shadow's nature there was mildness and
long-suffering, and in his back a bow to people with
white faces. It was a bow, not a cringe — a pleasant sensa
tion of obeying, not fawning humility.

But cavalrymen from the land where cotton blooms,
and persimmon trees flourish in every strip of woodland,
make no distinction. And many are the cavalrymen in
Uncle Sam's service who hail from localities where
negroes are hired now, and hated. But there are others
who punched cattle and straddled cow-ponies west of the
Mississippi and not so far south as the Rio Grande ; and
others still who lived once where negroes are seldom

124 Shadow and the Cherub.

seen, and are liked for their jollity and devil-take-care-of-
to-morrow dispositions. And these took notice of Shadow
in spite of black looks and murmurings.

There was a funny twinkle in his dark eyes and a won
dering pucker in his full red lips. Old Chicken, the far
rier, first took him under his wing. It was the night be
fore leaving the States, and the regiment had been paid
earlier in the day.

Now every officer knows that a common soldier works
with greatest dispatch and efficiency when broke. It was
a grand demonstration of mettle that the cavalrymen gave
that day. Each man assisted in pushing frightened and
fractious horses up a steep gangway, and in loading moun
tains of heavy luggage on the transports for many hours
— and all under the strain of a cavalryman's thirst with
a month's pay in his pocket.

Everything was ready when night came, except the
blessed tide. It would be four hours at least, the sailors
said, before the troop-ship dare cross the bar. Had it not
been for this mysterious and accommodating element the
Fiftn Cavalry would have lugged their whole month's
pay about cheerlessly throughout a long voyage. This
would have been unprecedented. It would have been
positively uncanny.

"It's dangerous to let them go," one lieutenant said;
"some will never come back."

"Let them go," said an old captain, who had risen from
the ranks, and who was no stranger to pity.

Shadow and the Cherub. 125

"You ought to know, captain, how duty looks and time
passes to a soldier on pay-day," the lieutenant replied
weakly. He was talking to his superior officer.

"Let them go," repeated the captain, and the boys
went to town with money intact and great responsibilities
tingling in their breasts. All came back save one, who
was not a drinking man, and who had lost a sweetheart
back in San Anton', but not in Porto Rico.

It was in those four hours that Old Chicken found
Shadow. The first time I saw him was a half hour be
fore the time of embarkation. He was sitting in the dark
ness on the lee side of the great ship. Above him flick
ered meaningless lights and a shadowy mystery of ropes
and rigging. Below him the chocolate-hued Savannah
playfully slapped the big piers and the transport's plated
sides. Beyond him lay the sea, trackless, dark and vast.

Two large bottles of something protruded from
Shadow's blouse. Smaller bottles of something protrud
ed from Shadow's many pockets. Hampers of other good
things surrounded him; and, very strange to tell, Wild
Bill, the most dissolute and prodigal of troop tom-cats,
purred cozily upon his lap.

But most inconceivable of all was the attitude of
Cherub, the untamable — Cherub, the vicious and massive-
jawed bloodhound — for several years a chattel of Troop
K. Cherub's hatred for civilians was depthless and
dreadful.

Then why should he put his great, ugly head upon
Shadow's lap and there rest so quietly and peaceably?

126 Shadow and the Cherub.

"Yo an' me is dun 'guine to Porto Ric, an' pussie-tom
and Old Chick is dun 'guine. Doan' shake yo' big hade
dat-a-way. I is aguine cos Old Chick dun sade I could.
We alls 'guine to Porto Ric, and de horses."

Shadow's head was very close to Cherub's jaws while
he was muttering these words. Then he began to croon
a quaint melody which the Old Mammy days had left be
hind in his kinky head. Cherub yawned in lazy content
ment, Wild Bill purred hoarsely, and I watched, wonder
ing.

Meanwhile the cavalrymen returned with laughter and
great happiness. Then the big troop-ship cast her log and
veered seaward. There were shouts but no sentiment.
Good cavalrymen — the ones who win chevrons in their
first enlistment — have no sentiment. A recruit possessed
of sentiment will lose it in the first three months, or else
apply for his discharge.

There was much of this element in Shadow's nature.
The horsemen, with their spurs, six-shooters and sabers,
made a deep impression. A queer, dreamy look was in
his eyes as he gazed out to sea and hummed softly, while
a tiny gale from the tropics zipped merrily by. The little
dusky boy was glad that he met Old Chick, the farrier,
glad that he was with such "strong, big men" — vaguely
glad that he lived. Cherub, the bloodhound, growled at
the wind and glared at the sea and kept close to Shadow's
side. Wild Bill cuddled closely.

"Here, nigger, take hold of this mop and scrub out.

Shadow and the Cherub. 127

That's all you people are good for anyway. Grab a root,
and grab it quick."

This was only part of what the sergeant from the South
said the first morning out. The whole was more brutal.
The sergeant was sick from the sea and sick from the
night before on land. We, from the North, saw Shadow's
trouble and tried to put him right. But something went
wrong in the dusky boy's mind that morning which we
could not put right.

You have all read of transport horrors. Perhaps you
have heard, too, of the sufferings of the splendid troop
horses and about the troopers themselves on a voyage.

Where the air is scented with sage brush and the eyes
smart with alkali; from the blizzards of Dakota and the
sun-baked plains of Texas — the cavalrymen come. They
are landsmen. They march through dust-clouds ancl race
through rainstorm, but they droop when on board a
rolling ship. Their bowed legs fit equally well to the back
of a mustang or a Wales, but they will not adjust them
selves to a swaying hurricane deck.

Twenty feet below the surface of the sea are the air
tight and cold storage compartments. Other compart
ments, where hundreds of hammocks are swung in tiers,
are above this. When the hatches are closed this second
deck is also air-tight. Here 600 cavalrymen sleep. A
sheet-iron flooring above them forms the bottom of the
stables, and the steel-shod hoofs of the troop horses make
a din for the ears of those below like that of many boiler

128 Shadow and the Cherub.

factories. Another tier of horses, and then one sees the
daylight and feels the ocean breeze.

Ten hours in the black hole would kill horses and some
people of olden times, but it only gives headaches to
American cavalrymen. It was sad, though, to watch the
men trying to put nerve and strength in the horses they
loved — the drooping, dying troop-horses. It was very
sad to see the animals hang their heads out into the
draughtless passageway, and distend wider their crimson
nostrils. Their eyes were filmy and opaque — very un
natural and pitiful, and their lower lips hung low and
quivered on the fourth day out.

Then the hoisting-gear became very busy, and men
grew sick when they heard the rattle of loosening chains
and so many loud splashes from the sea below. Five
days out, and there was more room in the stables for the
suffocating: troop horses still on their feet. Their limbs
were swollen now and stiff. The air in the stables was
deathly and heavy.

"Another horse down !" cries the stable guard, and the
hoisting-gear creaks again.

A strange, ugly mood possessed Cherub, the blood
hound, these days. He refused food, and was often heard
growling ominously from dark places. He occasionally
walked the upper deck, but was a friend to no one except
Shadow. Long after taps, when all save ship lights were
out, and the cavalrymen swung and sweltered in their
hammocks, Cherub was heard growling and skulking
about in the darkness. And his eyes shone with a baleful

Shadow and the Cherub. 129

glitter. Then Shadow would go to him, and for a time
Cherub would rest.

The dusky; boy was sad. The sentiment had been
torn from him and an ugly wound was left behind. For
the men from the North, Shadow would have been a
martyr. The others he feared and tried bravely to serve.

"Shadow's no good on dis ship," he said on the morn
ing of the fifth day. "We hated — can't do right — pussy's
tom's cross an' Cherub's crazy sick — ought to be back —
wiv' the niggers."

Many a sob with the preceding made it almost inco
herent. It was no morbid melancholy, but a helpless,
hopeless expression of grief. No man would have smiled
had he been present — poor little heartbroken Shadow !

Even as I was thinking of men, black and white, the
souls unsoiled, my ears were filled with the roar of a
brute. It came from the deck below. There was some
thing hideous and fear-inspiring about it. I never heard
such -a sound. Cherub never made such a sound before.
Yet I knew it came from his throat.

The cavalrymen lounging and laughing upon deck stood
erect now and felt for the six-shooters in their belts. But
the weapons were all stacked below in the hammock com
partment by special order. Again was heard the cry of
a tortured beast. Shadow moved toward the sound very
slowly. Soldiers and sailors were running and shouting
on the deck below.

"Cherub is mad ! Shoot the brute ! Look out up there !"

130 Shadow and the Cherub.

All these words we heard. Then Cherub dashed up the
companionvvay, his chains dragging behind. His fangs
were horrible to see.

A sailor in his way was thrown over, and to-clay there
is an ugly scar on his throat. Others were bitten. Shadow
was speaking in a low voice we could not understand.
The bloodhound and the boy were close together. We,
who were watching, shuddered. Slowly, cautiously, a
dark hand moved out and grasped the chain. The red,
flashing orbs of the brute lowered from Shadow's gaze.
We hoped no more when the bloodhound growled.

Without haste, seemingly, the dark hand holding the
chain moved toward the halyards. The ringers worked
swiftly for a moment, but how long it seemed to us !

Then like a flash Shadow was beyond the length of the
chain, and laughing like one whose nerve is gone. Cherub
beat his body upon the deck and upon the halyards.

We were in the tropics where there is no cure for
canine madness ; Cherub did not roar or suffer long, and
for him Shadow, who loved all things small and great,
wept long.

But out of that grief there came to the heart of the
little dusky boy a joy sweet and lasting, for somehow the
men from the South who stood upon the hurricane deck
that day forgot pride and prejudice.

And now the troop is scouring the mist-hung hills of
Porto Rico— peering into caves, and searching lonely
highland shacks — for Spaniards who were once soldiers
and now guerrillas.

Shadow and the Cherub. 131

Shadow is with them, and there is not a horseman in
the troop who would not charge through leaden hail to
save him from harm. And only when the men talk of
Cherub, the vicious and massive-jawed, does the darkey
boy look away and seem unhappy.

Back to San Anton'.

BACK TO SAN ANTON'.

Nobody thought that old Geldez would remember the
thrashing Mulgowan gave him. Not a man in the troop
would have given old Geldez credit for fiendish contriv-
ings. It wasn't because he was a drunken wretch and a
beggar by nature that made the boys hate him. Old
Geldez was a greaser, which implies everything weakly,
malevolent and detestable, and it was said that he was in
the habit of beating the little maiden of dark eyes who
called him father. A civilian greaser was old Geldez —
what could be more despised ?

Yet many a pay-day would have known no muscal, and
been correspondingly cheerless, had it not been for old
Geldez, who often weighted his boat down with Mexican
wines and paddled softly across the Rio Grande, with no
body watching but the moon, all of which is contrary to
the laws of a mighty nation. It is true that the troopers
paid many prices to the greaser, but muscal is cheap at
any cost on pay-days.

Now Mulgowan was a sergeant in rank, but at heart
he was never anything but a private and the prince of
good fellows. Because he could vault the highest horse
in the troop and make no specialty of it ; because he could

136 Back to San Anton'.

fight like a demon and yet did not make it a pastime, and
because he was a wizard with a six-shooter and a whirl
wind with a saber, Mulgowan was a very popular cavalry
man.

So when Geldez swore gruffly at the little maiden of
dark eyes one pay-day, while the boys were drinking mus-
cal in his place, Mulgowan was only praised because he
kicked the greaser out of his own door. Indeed the boys
were so facetious about the affair that Mulgowan felt
called upon to crack a fresh bottle of wine. He filled all
the glasses himself and then toasted the maiden of dark
eyes with all the tenderness which much wine and natural
gentility could put into words.

About this time the ugly face of old Geldez peered
through the window. It was so ugly in its pallid rage that
Mulgowan's hand felt instinctively for the six-shooter in
his belt. It was so very ugly and white that the maiden
of dark eyes threw her bare, brown arms about Mul
gowan's neck and wept just as white women do. And
then Mulgowan became very red because he did not know
much about such proceedings, but he kissed the little Mex
ican maiden, after which another fellow cracked a bottle
of wine. Meanwhile old Geldez outside plotted dark
deviltry.

After that the greaser's girl belonged to Mulgowan
just the same as his horse. And Mulgowan's horse loved
him, but not in the same way as did the dark eyes of the
San Anton' valley.

Women are different creatures the night before a regi-

Back to San Anton'. 137

ment pulls out. They tell you things that you never heard
from their lips before. They talk to you alone. They are
pretty in their gaiety, bewitching in their silence, quite
womanly in their tears, and adorable. The last night at
the San Anton' barracks was memorable. The regiment
was ready to laugh or cry. Promises were made. Mul-
gowan danced with dark eyes, and later they strolled out
into the moonlight together. And old Geldez watched
them and plotted still.

Historical novels have been written upon the reasons
why regiments were ordered out a short time ago. There
were few happier men than Mulgowan in the troop at
any time, but while we were pushing on to the front he
couldn't sleep for furious spirits. The "front" is any
place on the borderland of God's country and some other
place where something is expected to drop at any mo
ment. We arrived. Not many hours afterward Mul
gowan became a changed man and a spoiled trooper.

It happened in the morning just after the mail was
brought in. When one opens a package in a cavalry
camp he takes chances on being seen. One of the draw
backs of the service is that the state of blessed solitude is
unattainable. It was a small package such as jewels are
sent in. It was unregistered. A human finger, dry and
cold, was in the box. Mulgowan did not swear, which
was unnatural. The skin upon his face became colorless.
He dropped the thing. The trooper nearest looked at it
intently and then at his own hands.

"Left third finger," he remarked.

138 Back to San Anton'

"Is it a woman's ?" Mulgowan asked in a stifled voice.
His face was turned away.

"Must belong to a woman or a kid," was the answer.
"Cheer up, Mul."

That evening after retreat we saw Mulgowan sitting
alone in the shadowy twilight. His eyes seemed to look
backward toward San Anton'. He did not even smoke.
We hated to say anything. After a while Mulgowan
walked along the picket line until he came to his own
horse. Then he stopped and whispered for a long time
close to the fancy, little gelding's ear, an action on his
part which made the youngster Yellow Hair very happy,
indeed.

And long after taps had sounded I rolled over on my
bunk and peered out from under the raised walls of the
tent. The moon was high and there were no shadows.
Mulgowan still stood on the picket line. His fingers of
one hand were tangled in the mane of Yellow Hair, and
his eyes were turned backward toward San Anton'. The
stable guard walked his post and whistled low.

Three days afterward another package was handed to
Mulgowan, and when it was opened we saw another third
finger belonging to a woman or a boy. It was the third
finger of a right hand this time, and it was dry and cold.
Mulgowan's face did not change, because it had been
haggard and white for three days.

What the youngster Yellow Hair was told that night
no one else ever knew. He looked very wise and thought
ful while his master stood by his head just before taps

Back to San Anton'. 139

sounded. And after that, when all troopers slept, Mul-
gowan stole away. Yellow Hair never told that his mas
ter had gone back to the dark eyes of the San Anton*
valley.

After reveille roll-call the next morning the first ser
geant approached the troop commander, saluted and said :

"Sergeant Mulgowan missing, sir."

The troop commander strolled over to headquarters,
saluted several times, and reported to the officer of the
day:

"Sergeant Mulgowan missing, sir."

Among other things which telegraph operators pounded
out that same morning was, "Sergeant Mulgowan miss
ing." And the old greaser, Geldez, away back in San
Anton' heard the same words repeated, and his face be
came a dirty yellow hue, and people never saw him in the
San Anton' valley after that day.

A recruit in the troop, who was old. enough to know
better, spoke out loud and at length about time-of-war de
serters, and incidentally remarked that such did not de
serve a military funeral. We, who stood near, listened
until the youth had finished his observations, then we
applied our muscular selves toward making him regret
his words. The troop was broken up, for it loved Mul
gowan and was proud of him. Meanwhile the fancy, little
gelding Yellow Hair whinnied softly and often and pawed
the turf with his front hoofs.

The rest of the story, all except the ending, was told
me. They said that a man in civilian garb rushed into a

140 Back to San Anton'.

San Anton' bar-room several nights after the Geldez place
had been closed. It was very late. They said that the
man was mad and that he drank, drank, until stupor came.
And when he could drink no more the man was heard to
mutter :

"Cover them up, my little Dark Eyes— cover them up.
For God's sake, cover them up, I say !"

They all knew the dark eyes of the San Anton' valley
and they went at once to the place of old Geldez, the
greaser — many of them. The moon whitened the sand
about, but all was dark inside — dark and silent. It was a
low hut with four windows. The three in front were
tightly shuttered and ominous. The back window was
open, and the shutters were stretched apart. One of them
hung lightly on its hinges, and the night wind made it
sway and softly creak.

They entered, the fascination of terror was upon them.
A human voice would have made them turn and flee.
Had a cat purred they would have shrank back affrighted,
as if from an uncanny sound. Had it rubbed its furry
sides against them in the darkness they would have stood
fear-frozen, as if in the clutch of the devil. Curious
and uncertain things are those fibres we call nerves.

Truly, they seemed to crawl through the empty bar
room with its two tightly shuttered windows — through
another room, where the third window was accounted for.
Then the leading man stepped upon the threshold of the
last room and looked.

Have you ever heard the scream of a frightened horse ?

Back to San Anton'. 141

You will always remember the sound if you have. It is
horrible. It is like the sound which the leading man ut
tered when he looked into the last room of the Geldez
place that night.

The open shutter swayed in the wind and softly creaked.
A pallid moonbar came through the orifice and moved
backward and forward across the coverlet of the bed.
Something lay behind in the shadow — something voice
less, yet possessed of gleaming eyes ; and even as the first
man looked two awful objects were stretched out toward
him. Then the shutter creaked again, and the pale moon
beam included the two dark things in its light and the
man screamed. Later, when they had gained their breath
and nerves back in the bar-room, the leader said :

"I saw them move out from the shadow where the eyes
were, and they looked like arms, but there were no hands
to them — only stumps — ugh." The m^n shuddered and
gulped down many more drinks.

When daylight came the mad drinker crept unsteadily
from the bar-room. It was not until daylight came that
the other men ventured back to the old Geldez place.
Still afraid, they entered again, and found that they had
fled from nothing but the little dark-eyed maiden. Her.
arms were buried beneath a coverlet and when it was
raised, they saw how she had suffered. The dark eyes
were closed now, and the arms were still. The men won
dered why old Geldez was not there.

Yellow Hair was very happy one morning, because
Mulgowan had been with him and petted him again and

142 Back to San Anton'.

again. It was a different looking trooper who reported
for duty to the first sergeant that morning. Twelve
days had passed since Mulgowan lingered on the picket-
line, whispering to Yellow Hair and looking backward
toward San Anton'. In the orderly-room, where the troop
books were kept, a dirty word was written opposite his
name. In the little volume containing army regulations,
words are printed to this effect :

"Any soldier deserting from garrison or field will be
accorded such punishment as the court-martial may di
rect. In time of war this punishment shall be death."

Mulgowan had come back to the troop in the night.
Just after reveille he had reported to the first sergeant,
and the troop commander had placed him at once under
arrest. Mulgowan spoke no word to his old fellows. Oh,
how we wished we could help him. There was no joking
at mess that morning.

Anybody can tell you what happened after reveille and
before stables. A corporal and two privates of the main
guard were sent over from headquarters. The boys who
loved Mulgowan were out in the troop street, watching
while they placed him under arrest. Had they been any
thing but good soldiers, and had they been anywhere ex
cept in Uncle Sam's army, the arrest of Mulgowan would
never have taken place.

"Escort this prisoner to the guard-house," the troop
commander ordered.

Mulgowan stood at attention and spoke no word.

The two privates of the main guard brought their car-

Back to San Anton'. 143

bines to the position of port arms, and stood five paces be
hind the prisoner. The corporal saluted the troop com
mander and said, "Forward, march." The corporal's
voice was husky. He was not pleased with his task.

Mulgowan seemed not to hear the command. It was
repeated.

"Wait a moment," the prisoner said. He stepped over
to the picket line, where Yellow Hair was tethered. The
two talked together for a moment. The guards watched.

Then Mulgowan was led away to court-martial.

And the fancy little gelding, Yellow Hair, whinnied
often in the days that followed and pawed the turf.

The Voice in the Fourth Cell.

THE VOICE IN THE FOURTH CELL

Back from the coast and high among the hills is the
little village of Manati — hid away among the hills of white
rock on the island of Porto Rico. When the great guns
stormed and roared in the harbor of San Juan, fifty miles
away, only the faintest reverberations were borne back
to this tiny village. When the white Sibley tents of
Uncle Sam's soldiers dotted the rolling land outside the
town, naked children played in the streets and men and
women starved just the same in the prison.

There are thick mahogany bars on the fourth cell of
the Spanish prison at Manati. Look through them to
day and in the half-light you will see two very wonder
ful eyes. There are no such eyes back in the States. You
may find orbs like them among the fairest of Spain's fair
women, but few will there be so depthless, great and
dark.

They speak, laugh — they charm you so that you can
see naught but them. You cannot tell whether it is the
expression of knavery or the spirituelle light which
charms you more. You pause before them. If any
Spanish comes to you that moment you will speak. Then
gradually in the dimness you will perceive the rest of
Juan Tosto's face.

148 The Voice in the Fourth Cell.

It will please you. No countenance could be vicious
or ugly with such eyes. You will not wonder at the
sunken cheeks, or at the drawn, bloodless lips, for all
Spanish convicts slowly starve. Pass on, you must.

Then in a moment, you will hear strains of weird,
hushed melody. It is like the dream of a pure con
science, so sweet, so ethereal, so appealing; close your
eyes and you will see the great white moon, playing upon
the turrets of Spanish castles. You care not to under
stand the words — so touching is the music from the cell
of Juan Tosta.

But we knew the Spanish singer, Silk Redmond and I,
before he was starving in the dark cell of Manati prison.
When his home was on the great White Cliffs, hanging
over the curling, limpid Rio Grande, we met him. There
is a Rio Grande in Porto Rico. It is distant from no
where on the island. Its water is the clearest in the
world — like a mountain spring.

Years before Juan Tosta was a slave.

Because he was a Porto Rican those whose veins run
with pure Castilian blood, would have called Juan a mon
grel. Strange to an American are these people — so mild
and harmless are they. The finer feelings of life are not
unknown to them. They live in a land the capabilities
of which are incalculable, yet they die in their youth —
die not from disease, but in the slow agony of wasting
limbs, in the low fever of hunger unappeased.

Centuries of oppression have made them a timid peo
ple. The rich Spanish planter was their master once.

The Voice in the Fourth Cell. 149

To-day they are trying to realize that Americans pay
wages for labor.

The last words of dying Spain were a declaration of
peace. American soldiers are quartered in old Spanish
garrisons, and American gunboats peer majestically into
what were once Spanish cities. Senoritas are singing
"After the Ball" in all Porto Rican towns. All things
have been remembered.

Yet detachments of Uncle Sam's horsemen are scour
ing the hills for dark little men with bare feet and hag
gard faces — for men who have long known that war is no
more, and whose wives and children are passively starv
ing in the coast cities.

Do they hate the cavalrymen who are daily running
them down ? Yes, just as slaves of other days hated the
lash. Ah, but they hate the rich Spanish planter much
more, even as the slaves hated him who held the lash.

Why was it that skeleton companies of Americans
routed whole regiments of Spanish soldiers? Because
these dark little men with bare feet and haggard faces
were in the ranks. And why were they there? Because
they were nothing but poor Porto Rican mongrels, and
their masters, the full-blooded Castilians, drove them to
it.

And these same little men in those few months felt a
sensation which their fathers never knew. The Ameri
can feels it, trembles under it, glories in it.

It is the sensation of conquering fear.

They saw that the pale-faced Castilian was not king of

150 The Voice in the Fourth Cell.

the world, and they quivered in the thrall of a might)
thought. When it was no longer a thought but a con
summated action, these dark little men were deserters, in
festing the great white cliffs. And the Porto Rican
women were awed by deeds of such daring, and at night,
behind bolted doors, they whispered words of praise for
such heroes.

And they also taught their naked babies to say, when
Uncle Sam's soldiers passed by :

"Mericano mucho wano!"

And so well did the tiny, dark-skinned youngsters learn
the lesson that in a few days the words grew to be a
meaningless, wearying sound to the boys from the States.

Meanwhile the deserters made midnight sallies upon
the plantations where they once slaved. Yes, and they
burned the haciendas. The very dignified name of "guer
rillas" became theirs, and the cavalrymen from the States
received orders to bring them in dead or alive.

And all these things resulted in Silk Redmond and I
meeting Juan Tosta, the sweet singer on the Great White
Cliffs.

"We don't want to cart around any prisoners," the ser
geant of the detachment said. "The San Juan prison is
crowded now. We want to sleep nights, instead of stand
ing guard. All I got to say is don't monkey with the
greasers."

The sergeant was an old man. He had soldiered in
Texas. We were tickled at the outlook.

A December night, yet you wanted no blankets. Four

The Voice in the Fourth Cell. 151

men were already sleeping. The cook-fire was a mass of
whitened embers. The guard hummed softly and paced
about among the horses. Silk Redmond, finishing a
cigar, let his eyes wander high among the beautiful mys
teries of a tropical night.

When we had slept an hour the sky beyond an ad
jacent group of hills reddened into a vast lurid expanse.
The guard saw it, and in a few moments we all knew
that there was game in the vicinity and that it was very
much awake.

At dawn we pushed our horses up to the hot, smoking
ruins of a big hacienda. The Spanish owner said that
for two nights he had heard the songs of Black Stick up
in the cliffs — Black Stick, the bold and bad Porto Rican,
the very worst guerrilla on the island. He did his work
well that night, however.

For ten days we searched every crag and abutment
along the high walls of the Rio Grande, from Manati to
Ciales. The songs of Black Stick were heard no more,
a circumstance which made us understand that the out
law used his eyes. Then even the small detachment was
divided. Silk Redmond and I stuck together. Black
Stick was making sleepless nights for the old cavalry
sergeant.

And we, why .we would have given up future hopes for
a shot at him.

Did you ever track a buck for a whole day and then
watch him leap out from your very shadow and disappear,

152 The Voice in the Fourth Cell.

while you forgot that there were such things in creation
as carbines, cartridges and venison steaks ?

We were very weary, Silk Redmond and I. We were
blue, too, and foolish enough to let our minds wander
back to the States where our hearts were. We were too
weary to make a fire that night. Had we done so, we
would not have heard the soul-melting melody of the
Porto Rican bandit. A moment or two later, and we
would not have heard it, except as angel music in a
dream, for our eyes were weighted down with sleep.

We did not move. It was a soothing touch upon our
foreheads, like the pressure of a mother's hand. It
brushed away the calloused places in our souls and
changed us for one memorable moment from cavalrymen
into little children. It would have made us feel, had we
ever doubted, that there are raptures hidden away in
heaven.

The moon shone high upon the cliffs. The rocks stood
out in the pallid radiance. The Rio Grande twinkled
back at the stars above the gorge and hummed low of
peace and slumber. Down from the cliffs there came to
us a quaver of enchantment. Then the magic voice was
silent. It was :

"Like the last sweet note
From a wild bird's throat,
As off to the south he goes."

Black Stick was untamed still, but he was sad, too,
and very lonely. By his song we knew it.

The Voice in the Fourth Cell. 153

For several moments Silk Redmond's heart was so big
that it choked his throat, and he could not speak. This
is what the words were, when they came :

"I'm going to pull my freight in the morning and let
the poor devil starve and sing himself to death. I
wouldn't shoot that chap any more than I would — eat a
baby."

The Rio Grande purred and prattled on. It was very
dark in the gorge. I reached for Redmond's hand. His
was groping for mine. Then we dreamed of great cities
and loving white faces in the Northland, while the moon
mounted the skies above the gorge, and its white bars
played in the depths of the running river.

In the morning, the rest of the squad ran into us.

"Well, what do you know?" the old sergeant asked.

"Black Stick may be in Jericho for all I can tell," Red
mond averred hopelessly.

"In my opinion, Black Stick and his melancholy music
is all a fake," some one said.

I acknowledged, without choking, that he voiced my
sentiments exactly.

We were standing upon the river bank. The cliffs rose
high above us.

"Well, that beats the devil," said the old cavalry ser
geant. "We are certainly a gang of coffee-coolers."

A great rock knocked down a horse in our midst. It
was hurled from the heights. Then came another.

"All a fake," Redmond repeated nervously. Then the
sergeant spoke again :

154 The Voice in the Fourth Cell.

"Ford the river with these horses, Darley. Take posi
tions over there, and don't move your eyes from the
cliff. Corporal Mack, take two men and circle to the left.
I'll go this way with Redmond and the kid. No non
sense, remember!"

"We'll have to get to him first — if he lives," Redmond
whispered to me. And we raced ahead, climbing higher,
higher upon the rocks.

Even had I never heard the bewitching cadence of
Black Stick's voice on a moon-mellowed evening, no
white man could have leveled a carbine at those soft, lus
trous, Spanish eyes. And when Silk Redmond and I saw
them gleaming from a thicket, we stood erect and gently
beckoned for the dreaded outlaw to approach.

His knife was in one hand ; his hat in the other, and his
eyelids were stretched wide apart. There was a red light
in his great, dark eyes, like a distant forest fire shining
through a wall of night. It was the light of horror. His
dark skin was changed into the ashy gray of a raincloud.
Trembling he approached.

Thus was the taking of Black Stick, the terrible, on
the Great White Cliffs overlooking the Rio Grande.

Ah, but he was a sweet singer !

The old cavalry sergeant was very happy when he saw
the Porto Rican creeping in front of us down the cliffs.

"Why didn't you wing the greaser?" he asked.

"He didn't give us a show," Redmond answered.

It takes a good man to be a soldier. Redmond and I
were only recruits. Moreover, we had little hope of ever

The Voice in the Fourth Cell. 155

being much better. Had we been good soldiers we
would have captured Black Stick on the same night we
heard his songs. Had we been good soldiers we would
have had to carry the bandit's body down the cliffs, in
stead of allowing him to lead the way.

Strong was the guard that took Juan Tosta, alias Black
Stick, to Manati prison. Strong and thick are the ma
hogany bars which keep him in the dark, fourth cell.
The spirit of a bandit is broken within him. Hunger
plays sadly upon a man's nerve. And then the bandit
spirit is not mighty in the Porto Rican at best.

But his voice is not dead. It is as subtle as the cen
tury-old wine in the cellars of the mighty El Alcaldo. It
is as sweet as the memory of dear ones far away. And
the eyes of Juan Tosta, once a slave, once the dreaded
Black Stick, shine with the light of a living soul when he
sings.

Juan cannot understand why we two, who took him
from the Great White Cliffs, sit at evening at the ma
hogany bars of his cell — sit silent, almost breathless, until
he sings the slumber song and the bugle calls us back to
camp. Juan cannot understand why a warm, gray blan
ket with a big U. S. in the centre, was given him to sleep
upon.

Juan cannot understand why Silk Redmond thrust a
trembling hand through the mahogany bars last night,
when the slumber song was ended — a trembling hand
which grasped his own and lingered there.

Juan Tosta will never know why the two American

156 The Voice in the Fourth Cell.

cavalrymen took him from the Great White Cliffs above
the Rio Grande. He thinks we were good soldiers that
day.

And so does the old cavalry sergeant, even if we didn't
"wing the greaser."

The Good Which Was in Him.

THE GOOD WHICH WAS IN HIM.

No trooper said that Allen was not qualified to be troop-
clerk. He had formerly been a college student. He had
influential friends in Washington. Taps had just been
played over Cooper, the old clerk. And because the cap
tain picked out Allen to take his place, the boys were
angry. The clerkship is desirable in a cavalry regiment,
because it relieves a man from all calls and troop duty.
Allen might have been a college professor or the son of
the President, but among Uncle Sam's horsemen he was
only a recruit. And it was galling to see a recruit slip
out from his share of hard work. The boys got over it,
however, for the new clerk proved to be a good fellow.

As a cavalryman, Allen was athletic and satisfactory.
Some way, back in the States, he had never taken pains
to show people the good which was in him. As a matter
of fact, he was little heard from until the time when
Uncle Sam called for men to make soldiers out of. ...
There is a bunch of troopers down in Porto Rico to-day
who know that Allen once did a noble thing.

Ten days after he joined the troop another recruit came
down from Washington. He was a slender little chap,

162 The Good Which Was in Him.

with big, pathetic eyes. Soon he became known as Kid,
except in roll-calls, when he answered to "Allen, Num
ber Two." The little fellow had nothing to say, but we
could all see that he wasn't cut out for a trooper. We
knew, too, that he was making a game fight against that
overpowering sickness which feeds upon the thoughts of
home. The time came when both of the Aliens were away
back in the mountains of Porto Rico, and, like every
other soldier on the island, they dreamed much of their
native land. But the Kid brooded, which was bad for
him.

Retreat was just over for the cavalry detachment in
Ciales. The troopers hung up their carbines and six-
shooters, removed their hot blouses, and many strolled
over to lounge in the plaza of the tiny town. Allen, the
troop-clerk, walked slowly and thoughtfully down to the
stables. His bay gelding, Rio Grande, whinnied softly
at his approach. The big cavalryman stroked the animal
and was silent. Perhaps it was because he was lonesome
and heart-hungry that he sought the gloomy stables. A
little way off the big river, after which the troop-horse
was named, plunged and boomed over the rocks.

The valleys were growing dim with twilight, but high
up on the Ciales hill, where the stables were, it was not
dark yet. Allen wondered why there had been no mail
steamer from the States in San Juan harbor for ten days.
His shapely gelding seemed to be thinking about some
thing, too. Perhaps the troop-horse was wondering why
there was so much rain up on the Porto Rican hills, or

The Good Which Was in Him, 163

why the big soldier who petted him was so serious that
evening. Anyway, he playfully pushed off Allen's dusty
campaign hat with his silky nose, and afterward used
the same silky nose to find out what was in the pockets
of the big cavalryman's blue shirt.

Dark shadows crept higher and higher up the hills, and
the tropical stars grew steady and whitened. Allen won
dered if there would be a certain letter for him when the
steamer did come in — a letter from an American girl
whom he had always thought much about, and whose
memory had become a great and dear thing to him since
he had been a cavalryman. Somehow, his thoughts did
not make him happy, but he whistled very cheerily to
help him forget. Rio Grande was playful.

Just then the troop-clerk saw the other Allen sitting
alone in the gloom at the far end of the stables. The lad
was staring away over the hills toward the Northland.
The big fellow approached and peered into the other's
face. He saw a strange expression there — the same sort
of an expression which he had seen upon the face of
another recruit the day before a squad of men were sent
out to search for him.

'"'Are you sick, Kid?" the troop-clerk questioned ten
derly. He knew well why the silent lad was staring away
beyond the shadowy mountains. He knew the nature of
the sickness which was upon him — how intense and un
reasoning were his longings, how dark and deep was his
suffering. The troop-clerk knew because he had felt and
suffered, too, years ago in the first college days. And the

1 64 The Good Which Was in Him.

troop-clerk pitied the other Allen, with every bit of his
big, warm heart. Only two women knew the warmth of
that heart then, and one was the mother.

"Come on up to the quarters," he said, "where it's light
and the other fellows are. 'T won't do you any good to
be moping around here in the dark. I've got a good book
up in the orderly room. Come on up and get it — come on,
Kid."

He caught the lad by the shoulder and persisted gently.
Rio Grande whinnied softly as the two passed. Their
arms were locked, and the big cavalryman was talking
in a low voice. The river boomed in the distance, and
the stable guard walked his post.

********

It was four days after that when the mail came in
from the States. A big bundle of business matter from
the army headquarters at San Juan and some Washington
dispatches were handed to Allen, but there was no letter
from the American girl. With an angry burning in his
throat and a heavy burden in his breast, the troop-clerk
sorted the pile of routine stuff. He glanced through one
of the Washington communications.

A moment afterward he was covered with a hot per
spiration.

Allen folded the dispatch, placed a horseshoe upon it,
and then stepped out in front of the quarters to cool off.
He heard the rain pounding upon the cliff a quarter of
a mile up the trail. The shower was coming closer, closer.

The Good Which Was in Him. 165

Darkness closed in with the storm. The other Allen sat
silent and sad-eyed in the gloom.

"Maybe — she — thinks — I'm — not — worth — writing —
to," the troop-clerk muttered unsteadily. The eyes of the
lad were strangely wide open.

"Because I'm only a common enlisted man, and because
her father is a Congressman."

This moment the troop-clerk looked again at the face
of the other Allen. The big cavalryman seemed to forget
his own troubles. The other was only a boy. A mother
away back in the Northland was yearning for this boy.
And his face which the troop-clerk saw in the gathering
of the storm and night — well, it told of a heart which was
slowly breaking.

Two lips closed very tightly that moment. They were
the lips of the man who had been a college student once,
and whom many people back in the States thought would
never amount to much. He was the same big cavalry
man who had longed for a letter from an American girl,
and had received none.

Looking all the while at the lad, Allen stood very erect,
as soldiers are taught to do. Then he swallowed some
thing big and lumpy in his throat, after which he began
to whistle loudly. A gust of rain swept through the open
door of the quarters, and the sad-eyed soldier moved from
his seat and silently sank down upon his bunk.

A half-hour later the troop-clerk said to the top-
sergeant :

"An order came in to-night for the Kid's discharge.

166 The Good Which Was in Him.

His descriptive list was not among the papers, but the
dates and place of enlistment are all right."

Allen spoke very quietly. He had been working over
the papers for many minutes. The first sergeant looked
up from a ten-day-old paper and remarked :

"I'm glad of it. Can't make a soldier out of a homesick
young lady. . . . The mud will be knee-deep down
at the stables in the morning by grooming time if this
infernal rain keeps up — and this is the dry season."

The rain clouds rushed and clamored above the tiny
town. The trumpeter of the troop put his head out into
the storm, and his bugle screamed the last call a soldier
hears at night — the weird, wailing taps.

The next forenoon "Allen, Number Two," with a big
canvas roll in his arms, started in an oxcart for Manati,
where he would connect by train with San Juan. He
was the happiest boy on the whole island of Porto Rico,
because he was going back to God's country and his
mother, and there was an honorable discharge in his
pocket. Just before he had left the quarters Allen, the
troop-clerk, had given him a sealed envelope, and said the
following in a dry whisper :

"Read this, old man, when you can't see San Juan any
longer from the deck of the transport — not a minute
sooner. Understand? And write to me all — all about
Washington, as soon as you can. . . . Well, adios,
Kid. Good luck to you."

The same afternoon another bunch of mail was brought
to the troop. There had been so much on the delayed

The Good Which Was in Him. 167

transport that the clerks in San Juan could not sort it
all for the first day. One of the private letters which
Allen received contained the following paragraph :

"Oh, Jack, it's come! I vowed I wouldn't write you
again until papa told me your discharge was on the way.
Telegraph when you reach New York, and we'll all meet
you at the train. And, say, Jack, put on lots of warm
things on the transport, because lots of poor boys have
died of pneumonia from the sudden change of climate.
I can hardly realize that you are coming back."

Down at the lonely stables that night the shapely geld
ing, Rio Grande, looked very wise and thoughtful. A
certain big cavalryman stood at his head and said many
things in a choking whisper. The west was streaked
with dark red glory, but it was black and ominous beyond
the mountains in the northwest. The swollen river boomed
angrily down the trail. And the sentry walked his post
and occasionally kicked up straggling bunches of hay
closer to the picket line.

"So it was the little woman who got the discharge, and I
thought she — was — ashamed — to— write — to — me. . . .
Oh, well, the Kid is happy, anyway, and his mother will
soon be happy, too. ... I hope the little woman
won't be angry because I did it. The Kid would probably
be eating his heart out in the troop to-night if I had
received her letter the same time as the discharge. . . .
But I guess I can stick it out all right. I can stand it
all right, if she'll write to me."

The big cavalryman walked back to the quarters, whis-

168 The Good Which Was in Him.

tling very loudly and trying to forget. And that night the
trooper who had once been a college student wrote a long
letter to the American maiden whose father was a Con
gressman. Long after taps had sounded and all other
soldiers save the sentries were asleep, there was still a
light in the orderly room, and Allen was still writing.

The city of San Juan looked vague and far-away be
hind the harbor mists. The white walls of Castle Morro
were indefinite in clouds of gray. And when Allen,
Number Two, could see the Porto Rican capital no longer,
he tore open the sealed letter which the troop-clerk had
given him. Some of it is here :

"I suppose you wondered how it all came about. We
knew how you felt, Kid. We could see that the life was
killing you, and, to be honest, I was afraid you might do
something to disgrace that town which we both love.
And then I would have had to put a dirty word across
your name in the troop-books. You couldn't have been
happy at home if you went that way.

"You see, I had some friends in Washington, who got
a discharge for me, but / mislaid the descriptive list, made
'17' out of the '7' in the dates, and the discharge was
yours. Of course, I couldn't have done it if I hadn't been
troop-clerk.

"There were reasons why I didn't care particularly
about going home, but I knew what you suffered every
day in the troop. Don't feel sorry over this, because I'm
tough and can stand 'soldiering' a little longer. Good-
by, Kid, and good luck."

The Good Which Was in Him. 169

The great, silent hills back of old Morro seemed only
a deeper azure than the clouds now, but the eyes of "Allen,
Number Two," who was no longer a soldier, were too
filmy to take in their beauty. The transport steamed on,
on toward the Northland.

Every evening for almost a month the fancy bay geld
ing, Rio Grande, listened to a big cavalryman's confidings
and was petted. And no trooper knew the secrets which
Rio Grande was told. The troop-clerk attended to his
duties as a good cavalryman should. The great, white
cliffs were beaten with tropical showers, and the troopers
dreamed more and more of the Northland. And down
the trail from the stables the big river boomed and tum
bled over the rocks.

Allen was very busy when this letter came :

"So you thought I was ashamed to write to you? Ah,
Jack, you should have known me better than that. What
you did was hard for me, but it was harder for you. I
told everybody you were coming home. The mother of
the 'other Allen' thinks you are some sort of a soldier-
angel, Jack. . . . But I'll write to you — even if you
have to stay on that horrid, rainy island for three years."

Allen was very busy when the above epistle came. He
was making out the final statements for all the war re
cruits in the troop, for the official order for their dis
charges had just been cabled to the island from Washing
ton. His own discharge was already made out, because
the name Allen stands among the first on the troop muster
roll.

170 The Good Which Was in Him.

And down in the stables Rio Grande and the other troop-
horses pricked up their ears and whinnied softly when
they heard the happy shouts of the discharged cavalry
men up in the quarters. And the big river boomed might
ily and plunged over the rocks down the trail.

"Suppose," he gasped. "I should grab that salver and dance around the
quarters with it."

The Aberration of Private Brown.

THE

ABERRATION OF PRIVATE BROWN.

Brown had a faculty of listening while others talked.
He was a big cavalryman, and, putting it with studied
mildness, he was not pleased with his job. Patriotism
was noble once — about the time when the desks of liter
ary editors were deluged with spasms on the Maine blow
up — and Brown had become a trooper ere his unhealthy
delirium had pined away.

Many troopers were weeded out by the flies and fever
of a Tampa summer camp, but Brown had been one of
the tanned and haggard cavalrymen, too leathery to get
a sick furlough, and who were among the first American
soldiers to view the tropical shore and the mist-hung
hills of Porto Rico from the dirty deck of a transport.

And Brown was very unhappy in that land of few
birds and fewer flowers. The troop headquarters was in
Ciales, away up among the Great White Cliffs. And this
night a bunch of cavalrymen sat in the plaza of the tiny
town, and talked lingeringly about God's country over in
the northwest. The hill breezes were fresh with a shower-
odor, and pungent with the perfume of great orange
groves, borne up from the valleys. Stars were mellowing

176 The Aberration of Private Brown.

the tropical twilight above the cliffs. Brown was foolish
enough to let his thoughts wander back to his native land.
Very hurriedly, very carelessly, he had kissed a tall, dark-
eyed maiden on the spring night in the Northland, just
before he chased off to join his regiment. The memory
of that northern maiden had become a massive thing in
his brain during the last few months. Below him the Rio
Grande tumbled noisily across the Manati trail. Some
thing which an old cavalry sergeant was saying caught
Brown's ear this moment.

"... Pretty foxy recruit, he was, but dead sore
on the service. First thing we knew he was laid up with
a bad leg. The doctor was no chump, but he couldn't
do a thing for the rook — leg was stiff and swollen. Doc-
got gray hairs over the case — let the kid pound his bunk
for a few weeks, then give him a discharge for disability.
As soon as the kid got home he wrote back to his bunkie
something like this :

" 'Thread a horsehair on a fine needle and run it under
your kneecap. It won't bleed nor hurt much. Shave
off the ends of the hair close and go on sick report. The
doctor will do the rest. You can pull the hair out when
you're a man again — but maybe you want to serve out
your three years. Say, my leg was in fine shape the day
after I limped out of headquarters with a pained look on
my face and a discharge in my clothes. Love to all the
boys.' "

Brown's face reflected the glow from the red embers
of his pipe that night as he lay upon his bunk. And I,

The Aberration of Private Brown. 177

who was his bunkie, saw that face in the reflection and
wondered at the strange expression upon it. The wild-
ness of an idea in his brain caused it. And long after
taps had gone the red glow and the strange expression
was still upon his face; and from a formless throng of
thoughts in his brain there slowly developed a plan, de
fined, delicate and difficult.

To no man in the troop did Brown speak a word for
seven days. When one cavalryman made a remark to
this effect at the end of the time, every one thought of it.
I alone knew how poor a soldier and how royal a fellow
was Brown. Moreover, I was the only one who knew
about the maid back in the States.

At reveille roll-call one morning Brown was in ranks
but did not say "Here" when his name was called by the
top sergeant. There was a vacuum depicted upon his
face which showed rare art in its cultivation.

"Brown, when you come to," observed the top, "report
to the orderly room."

I never saw a man who could stare so picturesquely at
nothing and reflect it on his face like my bunkie could.
There were no active comments made in regard to
Brown's mental condition until the morning when he re
fused to get up for reveille. The first call had gone some
moments. The troopers were hurriedly dressing. There
was no movement in Brown's bunk. The sergeant of his
squad saw a pair of dull, expressionless eyes, which
drearily followed the movements of the flies on the wall.
The face of the man in the bunk was empty and smile-

178 The Aberration of Private Brown.

less. I was sitting near by, looking pained, and my poor
friend was saying:

"My brother's wife will be here day after next. Got a
telephone this morning. She doesn't know I was all cut
up in the war (there, that telephone is ringing again).
She said, 'Brown, you're looking bad.' . . . Tell that
gentleman at the door that my life was despaired of last
night, but that I am now out of danger."

After the sergeant had gone to make the troop-com
mander acquainted with the affair, Brown whispered to
me:

"Say, if you think this is easy, just try it for awhile !"

That night the patient felt the necessity of becoming
more active in the capacity of a wild man. The burden
of his song — and he hasn't a fortune in his voice — was,
"O, beer in the little black bottle, black bottle." It de
veloped in those hours of night that I was the only person
who had the slightest control over Brown. It was a
touching proof of his friendship for me because I was re
leased from all calls and troop duty and turned into a sort
of keeper for my poor friend.

But the strain was telling sadly upon him. For some
unaccountable reason the troop commander had not yet
reported the matter to the physician, and Brown had only
been allowed the luxury of a lucid interval twice in four
days. When I was alone with him, he said :

"Here I am as nutty and as noisy as a whole fever ward
— have to study all night to get my ravings down pat, and
the d doctor won't come around to pronounce on

The Aberration of Private Brown. 179

'em. If I'd a'known this thing had to be kept up indefi
nitely, I'd a' deserted first. Say, it's no cinch to keep the
bees buzzin' in your bonnet."

He was looking at me pathetically. There was no
humor about Brown.

"I have to keep saying to myself," he went on, dismally.
"Brown, you're hivey, you're buzzy, you're supposed to
hear noises and look idiotic — and, by heaven, the idea
grows on me ! Say, bunk, don't you think it would bring
the doctor around if I got — er — violent ?"

I felt that his suggestion was a good one, but in the
capacity of a keeper, I recommended that it be a mild
sort of violence.

"Oh, I'll not bruise you up, except when the others are
looking," he said seriously.

And he got violent. It was that unreasoning, oh-if-I-
could-only-die-give-me-a-knife sort of violence. He
would look at me as if to say, "Don't you dare give me a
knife." Still the doctor did not appear. After two hours
of splendid effort, Brown was hoarse and fagged out.

"Suppose," he gasped, "I should grab that saber and
dance around the quarters with it?" He was drenched
with perspiration.

"You'd get shot — promptly," I observed. "Here
comes somebody ! Get nutty, Brown, it's the doctor !"

I couldn't describe that interview. Brown spread him
self. He was a poetic dreamer — a maudlin maniac — per
fect. The doctor departed with no thought but pity in
his mind — supreme evidence that there was no humor in

i8o The Aberration of Private Brown.

Brown. A couple of hours afterward the top sergeant
called me into the orderly room and said many surpris
ing things.

"Well, what do you know?" asked Brown in a low
voice. He was sitting up in his bunk, smoking cheer
fully. The ordeal of the doctor was over. His pros
pects were only cheerful ones now. As the whole troop
was out on target practice, Brown was having a lucid in
terval. The enjoyment of it shone upon his face. I
hated to spoil it, but I might not have so good a chance
again.

"The doctor says you've got 'em, all right."

"Did he say there were any special or interesting feat
ures to my — my derangement ?" he questioned facetiously.

"And they're going to send you back to the States," I
resumed.

"I guess I'm pretty bad actoring. I guess I won't do."
Brown was tickled. Oh, what a shame it was to have to
tell him ! The troubled look on my face made him say :

"Devilish sorry, bunkie, you can't go along. Honest,
you'll never know how much I think of you for the way
you helped me out. We were always solid, though, be
fore — before I was taken. Why, confound it all, the only
thing I regret is leaving you in this — dam' country !"

It was positively pitiful.

"Don't worry about that, old man," I said, "I'm going
with you."

Brown jumped at my hand and declared with a

The Aberration of Private Brown. 181

throaty quaver, "By Jove ! if you'll desert, I'm with you,
body and soul!"

"Don't boil over so loud, Brown," I said quietly.
"You've got your own little game to play — besides, when
I quit this man's service, I'm not going to have a French
leave to look back on."

Brown was looking more mystified every minute.

"Moreover," I went on, slowly, "you don't think they're
going to let a wild man run around loose on a transport,
do you ? Why, it would be a criminal imposition. You're
liable to hurt somebody. You'll be under a strong guard
all the way home. Corp. Kennedy and I are appointed
your keepers."

As I have said some half dozen times before, there was
no humor in Brown. The excruciating refinement of my
pleasantries were lost on him. In fact, Brown was dazed
and limp. His pipe dropped to the floor.

"I never thought of that !" he gasped.

"The captain has written to your parents concerning
your deplorable absence of mind, but we can "

"Wha-at?" roared Brown. He sat up erect, wild-eyed.
And I had been warned to spare him from all excite
ment.

"But you can write them that your mind is only tem
porarily webby, and — and I'll sign the statement."

Brown looked at me with pitying scorn.

"Yes, and the folks will say the saddest thing about
it all is, the poor boy believes he is perfectly sane. And

182 The Aberration of Private Brown.

I see a pathetic finish for Brown when the maid hears
about it — oh !"

"Get leary, old man," I whispered, excitedly, at this
moment, "the boys are coming back."

Brown's derangement assumed a suicidal mania at
once. Corp. Kennedy was exhausted in the course of an
hour through his efforts to keep the patient from doing
himself bodily harm.

Now, the corporal was a conscientious man. It was
this trait, chiefly, which caused the troop commander to
put him in charge of Brown, the much deplored. It
would be a long story, indeed, to relate how the Porto
Rican children pointed to my poor friend, and then
touched their own foreheads, whispering to each other :

"Loco — Americano soldato, loco."

It would be a long, sad story to tell how poor Brown
was confined in the rear smoking-room of the transport,
and how Corp. Kennedy insisted that either he or I must
be awake with the patient all the time. It was a burden
of peculiar and crushing weight for Brown to bear, when
the sick and discharged soldiers going back to the States
would peer through the loopholes of the smoking-room
and make remarks such as these :

"Why, he washes his face all right," or "It's a wonder
they don't keep him in a straitjacket," or "He's a savage-
looking lunatic," and others.

The conscientious manner, too, in which Corp. Ken
nedy did his duty, had an oppressive and unpacifiying ef
fect upon Brown, whose violent intervals occurred only

The Aberration of Private Brown. 183

when the corporal was on guard. Violence seemed to
weary Brown on the transport, and he did not persist in
it, except when it was absolutely indispensable. At such
times the loopholes of the smoking-room would be
crowded with interested faces.

While the big transport was being shoved and locked in
pier 22, New York harbor, Kennedy was the busiest man
on the ship. A good soldier was Kennedy, and before
meeting his superiors at the army building he shaved and
donned his finest. I was told to keep Brown under heavy
guard until he returned. The corporal said he would
send a telegram to the patient's mother.

Passing over the manner in which the patient's dis
charge was obtained, only one more scene is necessary.
Brown braced himself for a last delirium. The corporal
must have no suspicion, at least while he was in the States.

"Allow me to wholly manage the matter," Kennedy
whispered to me, as the train rolled into Brown's native
burg. Our patient appeared placid. By the expression
upon his countenance one would imagine that he held
both of his keepers in serene disdain.

And a moment afterward Brown was in the arms of a
weeping mother. He talked irrelevantly; he smiled a
debilitated smile — he was the Brown of illusions — because
Corp. Kennedy was there. It was the bravest effort of
his life.

And a tall maiden with eyes dark and handsome, yet,
oh, so sad — was also there ! Brown appeared not to see
her.

184 The Aberration of Private Brown.

"It is with much sorrow, madam," Kennedy began.
His words were studied. I could hear no more. Some
how the face of that mother and the eyes of that tall maid
en — made me feel giddy.

"Excuse me, miss," I began, "but I am Brown's bunkie,
and he was my best friend down there in Porto Ric "

I had planned to explain many things before the secret,
but the maiden's eyes told me that her heart was breaking.
She knew and felt the truth an instant later and her dark
eyes were sad no more.

"The corporal knows nothing," I concluded. "I will
get him away, then you tell the mother. Say to Brown
that I will see him to-night at 9. It was you, miss, that
sickened the boy of the service. The corporal will not be
with me to-night."

And the time came when I had to hasten away from
Brown's mother and Brown's sweetheart and Brown, be
cause if I had not they would have seen something in my
eyes — something that would not have looked well in the
eyes of a big trooper.

And on the transport Corp. Kennedy pleased himself
with the thought of a difficult duty well done, and I —
well, I smoked and dreamed and missed my old bunkie as
we neared the tropical shores and the mist-hung hills.

The Last Cell to the Right,

\

THE LAST CELL TO THE RIGHT.

Nobody knew the real reason why Stanley was so hag
gard and white, when he came out from the Spanish
prison at Bayamon. He had served five days for missing
retreat. He certainly was not starved, because they fed
him as usual from troop rations. Yet Stanley was a dif
ferent cavalryman when he returned for duty.

Now, the best of troopers have done time in the guard
house. Some captains use the old Spanish prisons of
Porto Rico for guard-houses these days. There is one
in Manati, a high interior town, sixty miles from San
Juan. I had ten days against me when I was put in there.
Why? Well, that story has already been told. At any
rate, I only served seven. The other three days and many
more were in the hospital. It was what I saw which
shriveled up my nerve.

When the realization came to me that it was a physical
impossibility to dream away the whole ten days, I looked
about. The aspect was not an inspiration. I sat in a
small, stone-paved plaza, surrounded by cells, dark, dirty
and depressing. There was a well in the centre of the
prison yard, and when one walked across the flagging,

190 The Last Cell to the Right.

his footsteps sounded with a cavernous reverberation in
the black water chamber below. The entrance to the plaza
was a big iron gate which was open in the daytime and
guarded by a Spanish policeman. At sunset the prisoners
were locked in the cells, and the plaza was left untenanted
save by stray ponies and pallid moon bars. It was in
one of those cells that Juan Tosta, the sweet singer of
the Great White Cliffs, sang mournful melodies and sick
ened — Juan Tosta, once the dreadeJ brigand Black Stick.
Every one of those cells has been the abode of living
death. Men and women and babies have suffered there
in ways hardly conceivable to white people. Tad was born
in that last cell to the right, where the stocks are. Tad
studied me from head to foot when I first became his
fellow-convict.

He had the eyes of the wizened woman who crouched
at the door of the last cell. Three years before, without
a cry or sound, Tad had filled his lungs for the first time
— filled them with the foul air of a prison. An old con
vict woman told me this. His arms were like any other
baby boy's, but if there was ever a voice in his throat
it had not yet been used. His head held some kind of a
brain. You could see that by his eyes, but Tad never
learned to smile.

A garment hung about the brown baby, and about the
garment hung the same odor which reached my nostrils,
when I ventured too close to the woman who sat at the
entrance of the last cell — sat almost hidden behind her
gaunt knees. Her lips, her breastless figure never moved,

The Last Cell to the Right. 191

but everywhere her eyes followed the baby. They were
filled with seeming- consciousness of that crime which
gave him life in a prison cell. They were bright with the
staring brightness of fever. Had they shone from a skull
wrapped in brown paper they would not have made you
shudder more. The father of the infant was never seen,
but day and night his moans were heard in the plaza.

There are men and women in Porto Rican prisons who
have committed no crime. When families can furnish no
home for themselves the province gives them a cell. At
1 1 o'clock each day the province also gives them a cupful
of clay-colored soup, the primary mystery of which no
soldier has yet solved. The province does not care if its
paupers obtain other articles of food. They are welcome
to anything which they can beg on the outside. But when
the life spark has become gray and chilled, as in the case
of Tad's mother and father — so depleted that they crawl
with groans and great difficulty — then they have nothing
but clay-colored soup to make their dying longer. In
deed, some paupers have been dying for years upon it.
This is a matter of no consequence to the province.
American paupers and soldiers have an enlightened habit
of eating three times a day. They are unlike the Porto
Rican in this respect.

One's bones need little food. When all one's muscles
are attenuated and dried into stiff, brown cords from eat
ing clay-colored soup, then one's stomach ceases its pain
ful gnawings at a vacuum. Tad's mother was like this.
His father was not yet in that condition. You could tell

192 The Last Cell to the Right.

that by his moans. I observed all these things during the
first day. It tended to create within me an aversion for
government straits.

A woman walked slowly through the iron gate at the
prison entrance. She was smileless, hungry-eyed and
silent. A large tin can was balanced upon her head.
Her fleshless figure was marked with none of the curves
of a woman. Her feet were bare; her movements slow
and painful. Tad approached her. From a pocket in her
dress the woman produced a green orange — natives eat
oranges while they are green in Porto Rico. Still silent
and smileless she handed it to Tad.

Over by the entrance to the last cell, the mother
crouched and stared. There was madness in her eyes,
but she did not move. The man moaned inside. At the
well the other woman slowly and painfully filled the can.
The descending chain made a weird, cavernous rumble,
as it beat against the slimy stone wall of the black water
vault. Kneeling upon the flaggings, she placed the can
upon her head and was gone. Tad poked his hand through
the rind of the orange and crept toward his mother. Her
eyes stared at him with an intensity I shall never forget.
I see those eyes to this day. They seemed to bring the
child to her. Suddenly her black skeleton hands shot for
ward toward the orange, but Tad eluded her. Still she
crouched motionless, but her mad eyes followed every
movement of the child.

"Cannot these people speak ?" I almost cried. My terror
was unaccountable. You will see life rank and naked in

The Last Cell to the Right. 193

a Porto Rican prison. It is bared of all tinsel wrapping.
You will see how the slow suffering of hunger unappeased
depraves the human mind — how one wolfish thought
creeps into it and stays. You will shudder in horror at
the sight.

At sunset the Spanish policeman locked my cell and
the others — all save the last one to the right. The woman
was still huddled at the entrance, while the twilight was
deepening — and the man moaned inside. I saw no more
of Tad that night.

Did you ever hear a cat step on dry, brittle leaves?
It is just such a sound as this which numerous cock
roaches make when they crawl across a stone floor. It
will keep you awake. If you are alone it will make you
sit erect, and things will become distorted in your mind.
Your eyelids will stretch wide apart. The darkness will
seem shadowy. There is always darkness where cock
roaches are. The shrill, snarling "peak, peak," of raven
ous rats can be borne, but the clicking rattle of cock
roach hordes is maddening. Behind shut lids you will
see black spiders dangling before your face. A strong
pipe will sooth you some.

I was glad when the ashy moonbeams darkened in the
plaza and the dawn settled down. The trooper who
brought breakfast over from the quarters said my face
was white. I could well believe it. As I lifted a can of
coffee my hand trembled. The sight of Tad sickened
me. I placed the tin plate of bacon and potatoes upon
the flagging and kicked it toward him. No sound reached

194 The Last Cell to the Right.

me in the cell, where I disappeared for a moment. But
when I returned the plate was empty. Tad held a potato
in his two brown hands, and it struck me that he looked
significantly across the plaza at two convict women. His
mother's mad eyes were riveted upon him. The man
suffered inside.

Then the fleshless form of the water-woman swung
slowly in through the iron gate. She filled the big jar
and was gone — silent and smileless as a spectre. My
nerves were twitching — my head ached. It seemed as if
I were becoming dumb and inhuman — like these natives.
Night must come again. The thought haunted me with
shuddering dread. I dared not tell any soldier what I
suffered lest he should laugh, having neither seen nor felt
what I had. The sameness of it all, the silent suffering
of the woman, the moanings of the man from the dark
ness, the filth, the vermin — all tortured me. And every
hour of the growing day was a ruthless warning.

In the cavalry service men from the ranks have to bury
the dead horses and mules. I performed a ceremony once
in a hot country over the remains of a government mule,
four days gone from the glanders. I did not volunteer
for this duty. It was thrust upon me. I remembered that
task the second morning in Manati prison, when I admin
istered unto my little fellow-convict a scrubbing down
with government bouquet.

This was necessary. Not so much for the furtherance
of Tad's comfort as for my own. He was hourly de
creasing the interval between us. He seemed to like the

The Last Cell to the Right. 195

American soldier. He was mightily attached to the white
potatoes of the American soldier. In order that I might
be comfortably chummy with the brown baby the duty
devolved upon me to give him a thorough grooming.

First I cut down an army undershirt into a sort of ulster
for my diminutive friend. He watched me soberly. He
still held part of the potato in his brown hands. His
face was smeared with it, the result of a peculiar process
of absorption. I then rolled up my sleeves, put a heavy
charge into my pipe, and recklessly cut off Tad's garment,
which was so crowded with associations.

Tad tolerated the idea. The soldier who gave him big,
white potatoes was entitled to some consideration. I had
often wondered why his slate-colored hair grew in
patches. I ascertained the reason. It must be imagined.
With a box of matches I succeeded in changing his for
mer garment into ashes. Tad was finishing the potato,
while I sweated for several reasons, the heat included.
With the most trying part of the task over I turned to the
soap and the brown baby.

Such a shock I received that moment can never be ade
quately expressed. From motives of charity and others
I had undertaken to scrub the child down. Well, all I
can say is that I did it very hurriedly and with averted
face. As a matter of fact, I beckoned to one of the con
vict women and made her finish the job. I gave direc
tions at a modest distance. Tad was allowed to dry in
the sun. SHE was as shiny and rosy after the operation
as only Porto Rican babies are. The mother, crouching

196 The Last Cell to the Right.

at the entrance of the last cell to the right, viewed passing
events with eyes that silently raved. And the water-
woman strode silently in and was gone with her burden.

The little girl baby was my comrade after that. She
forgave the liberties I had so unintentionally taken. She
allowed me to trim her finger nails. Baby hands, even if
they are brown, are cute things and well worth studying.
All my efforts failed to bring forth from her a word, a
smile or a cry.

Dinner was brought over, and we sat down upon the
curbing of the well, Tad and I. The baby thrust her
fingers into the mess tin and drew forth a potato. I drank
coffee — my stomach revolted at more. Suddenly some
thing crushed its way into my nostrils. Violently sick
ened, I looked about. The mother of the baby was upon
me. She had crawled from the cell door to my feet.
I placed the mess tin upon the flagging and fled to the far
end of the plaza. Tad sat on the well curb, busy with
the potato. The man in the cell moaned louder, and
drops of water from the brimming bucket fell into the
black tomb with a cadence deep and dreadful.

The bright day waned. The gloom in the cells deep
ened. The gaunt, smileless water-woman came no more.
Over in the troop quarters the first call for retreat sound
ed. The Spanish policeman stood at the door of my cell.
He smiled and beckoned. God only knows what I would
have given to answer retreat instead. I tried to smile,
but the impulse was strong- within me to strike him. The

The Last Cell to the Right. 197

woman at the last cell moved her horrid eyes toward me
as I entered.

And so five days passed — five days in which I became
aged and unmanned — five days in which I atoned for all
my sins, past and to be. And all the while Tad became
more and more like a child which is fed, and tbe white
army shirt which she wore for a gown grew darker, like
the one which was ashes. And all the while the fleshless
water-woman swung in through the iron gate and car
ried her burden away. And the man was never silent,
and the mad-eyed mother changed not.

The sixth evening I clung to the trooper who brought
supper to me. I spoke no words — only clung to him.
Fiercer than ever the temptation besought me to strike
the jailer down as he smiled and beckoned after the call
for retreat had sounded. I tried to sing, but my voice
was hoarse and broken. I could not smoke, for I had
not eaten. The darkness was moving with shadows.

I cannot tell the time it all happened. It is horrid for
me to think of it now. There was the scream of a child.
I never heard the voice before, but it was from Tad's
throat ! An instant later the black tomb below the flagging
was filled with cries — but they did not last. I sprang to
the bars of my cell ere the sounds had ceased to vibrate
in the dark chamber.

And in the white moonbeams of the plaza I saw the
mother of the baby girl crawling slowly from the well
curb toward the entrance of the last cell to the right.

And that moment as I looked something snapped in my

198 The Last Cell to the Right.

brain. During the many days which followed in the hos
pital I saw the gaunt, smileless woman filling her can at
the well. And often the black tomb below her would
vibrate with wailing echoes.

There is a small room in the troop headquarters now at
Manati which the captain ordered to be set apart for
military prisoners.

The Fever's Fifth Man.

THE FEVER'S FIFTH MAN.

Fogarty was the heaviest and most depraved man in the
troop. Moreover, he had the reddest face I ever saw with
one exception — a man connected with political adjust
ments back in my native burg. Maybe I wrong Fogarty.
It depends upon the point of view from which one scans
depravity. Briefly, his faults were these :

He terrorized recruits. Following each pay-day, he
flirted with serpentine combinations until broke. He was
utterly devoid of reverence or moral conception. He
cursed incessantly, executing weird flourishes and intro
ducing innovations of the most nerve-shriveling nature.
Scientists would have called him a study of degeneracy.
Cavalrymen deemed him only superficially depraved be
cause he threw away money and loved his horse. Mint
Julep was the horse's name.

Now, I was a recruit and in Fogarty's squad. No man
or boy is a rational being during his first month
in the cavalry service. Veterans say their marked suc
cess in life is due to it — or their failure. A recruit has
much to learn, but first of all he must overcome the
if-mama-could-only-see-me-now expression his face is

204 The Fever's Fifth Man.

prone to assume. He learns that it is unprofitable to
expatiate upon the rich appointments of his residence far
away, and upon the princely salary he threw up. He
learns to grin while his trousers are sticking to his legs,
because they are chafed and bloody from bareback riding
in the bull-ring. He learns that the U. S. commissariat
does not supply pie", silken hose or scented pillows. He
learns the peculiar devilishness of Southern army camps in
sultry weather. He learns to eat flies and other strange
things — and to eat them in vicious sunshine. He learns
what a terror the rainy season is for one who can't get
out of it for several reasons. He learns to chew holes
in his tongue when a superior officer calls him a dis
grace to his country and other expressive things. He
learns how insignificant it is possible for a human atom
to be. He learns to laugh at the whole business and write
home how strong and happy he is.

Some recruits never get rational. They take things
seriously. They mutter "God help me," and bad things
about wars and armies.

I enlisted about the time poems on the Maine became
unpopular. Fogarty applied a system of ghoulish torture
to make me miserable. I concluded that he was a cun
ningly-constructed object for my hatred, and that his heart
was packed in ice. What I concluded about army life in
general I kept to myself, thereby scoring a hit.

One evening I won a foot-race and found myself a
friend of Fogarty's. Old soldiers are fond of physical
demonstrations. He was in my set of fours in troop drill

The Fever's Fifth Man. 205

the next morning. Naturally, my horse had it in for me,
because I was only a tilty, trembly recruit, and the bridle
did not fit. Several officers had already directed stereo
typed call-downs at me. The troop halted for a moment
while horsemen formed on our right. We stood at at
tention — very properly — all except Fogarty. To my be
wilderment he slipped down from his mount, deftly and
quickly tightened my bridle on both sides of the curb,
and stepped over his horse again, whispering:

"Give me a chew tobacco, Kid."

He had risked reprimand to do me a good turn, and
the ice packing which I pictured about his heart oozed
out of my mind forever.

We were on the skirmish line together, crawling up the
drenched hill in front of Santiag', Fogarty and I. We
beard the droning death-whistle which is thrown from
Mauser barrels, and saw the punctures which the whis
tling things made in roots and sand and in soldiers. We
turned our faces up when it rained, and gaped like lizards
do. We tried to cough out sand which caked in our
throats. We propped up our heads with empty can
teens when neck muscles collapsed. We burned our hands
on the barrels of our own carbines. Cartridge-belts burned
our waists. We did not mind any of these things.

We knew nothing — felt nothing but the heat. It was
the sunshine that we cursed at huskily — the terrible sun
of Cuba. It put a throbbing weight in our heads. It
made us laugh. It bound our limbs. It mixed the stifling
smoke of powder with the steaming, choking stench of the

206 The Fever's Fifth Man.

ground. That stench, which the sun made, is fever. It
filled our stomachs, our lungs and our brains.

When the command "Rest" was heard along the firing
line, I used Fogarty's mess plate to pile up the sand in
front of me. Mine was thrown away. And when it was
night I smoked half of Fogarty's last pipeful, and after
that I rolled over on to half of Fogarty's blanket. Mine
was thrown away.

"Thank God, we didn't get punctured this day," I mut
tered. It was night, and silent about. The Red Cross
men were busy.

"I'm too tired to give a dam, Kid," said Fogarty.

A couple of days later I awoke in the morning feeling
stiff and tired. We were encamped about the city. At
noon my face burned and I did not answer mess call.
I wanted to sleep. At 4 o'clock Fogarty felt my cheeks.

"I'll tell the top-sergeant to let you pound the bunk
awhile longer," he said.

The next day I was in the hospital, feeling hot and
thirsty and hungry, all at once. The air in the hospital
tent was full of groans and the odor of drugs. It was
also stifling. The boys about me had felt the weight of
a locomotive concentrated into a Mauser rifle ball. To
me Fogarty said :

"Kid, you've got the fever."

After that I didn't see him for six weeks, because I
was sent back to the States on a hospital transport. I
had reached the furlough stage, which means that delirium
was over, and that my fever had flickered out, leaving

The Fever's Fiftli Man. 207

only half of me and a disreputable appetite — when Fo
garty came. I had no clothes to go on furlough with —
nothing but a tattered shirt and a debilitated pair of cav
alry trousers ; and the worst of it was I could not get any.

It is not hard for me to recall the events of that night
when Fogarty came. I was watching the Red Cross men
unload a hospital train. A procession of stretchers was
passing from the cars to the fever-tents. Some of the sick
men had been forced to walk. Had I not seen others
staggering through the twilight, I would have said that
Fogarty was drunk again. He dragged a huge blanket
roll.

"Kid, where's the rest of you?" he questioned weakly.

I really embraced him that night — Fogarty, the pro
fane, the red-faced. And when he told me that he had
brought along a bundle of my clothes from camp, I could
not speak, for my voice-cords were numb. I only whim
pered. Fever leaves one childish-weak, you know.

Fogarty had lugged along my things with his own —
and he a sick man. He had remembered me after six
weeks — remembered me, who was only a recruit. I tell
you, gentlemen, there are men in Uncle Sam's cavalry.

That night Fogarty stretched his great body out on a
mattress — a real one — for the first time in two months.
His feet protruded through the iron rods at the lower
end of the bedstead.

"Are those women going to be here ?" He pointed to a
couple of nurses. I nodded.

"Why, it's a cinch to have the fevers here, ain't it, Kid ?"

208 The Fever's Fifth Mail.

His tongue was dry like it was on the Cuban hills that
day. A beam of the low, white moon looked in through
the flap of the tent and rested on Fogarty's hands. It
made them seem pallid, but his face was very hot and red.

An ugly fever is typhoid. It chars one's brain and
body with slow flame. It stretches the eyelids wide apart.
In the middle of the day it glows to a white heat. It turns
one into a helpless animal, that feels only an incurable
thirst and a craving stomach — an animal that moans for
ice water when the nurse is busy wrapping up a dead man
in the next cot — a staring-eyed animal that knows there
are such things as home and friends and death, but cares
not. Listlessly he watches a companion fall into that
chilled sleep.

Typhoid plays with four men and gets earnest with the
fifth — fatally earnest. The moon was high when I left
Fogarty that night.

A couple of weeks later he looked at me hard one morn
ing. It was going badly with him.

"Why in the devil don't you go home?" he asked ten-
.lerly. It wasn't like the old Fogarty's voice.

"Haven't got a furlough yet," I said, lying. The papers
vvere eight days old already. "Haven't got a hat, either,"
I continued. I had been wearing Fogarty's. Mine was
lost.

"Take care of this 'dough' for me, will you, Kid? I
didn't have time to blow a dam red. It gets my nerve
with this thirst."

The Fever's Fifth Man. 209

He gave me his last month's pay. Fogarty was getting
hot, and the nurse pushed me away.

"Keep the hat you got on, Kid."

I could barely hear his voice. His face was not very
red now. How I wished he could see the pain inside
of me for him. "Keep the hat you got on, Kid. I'll get
another if I don't croak.'"

The doctor hung around Fogarty 's cot the next night.
The nurse had drawn a chair close to him. I held a lan
tern near. The rain clouds were venting themselves out
side.

''Watch out for Mint Julep, Kid," mumbled poor Fo
garty. He was not looking at me. His eyes stared at the
sleeping flies on top of the tent. His eyelids were far
apart.

"They'll be good friends — Julep and the Kid — both
dam good fellows. . . . Nope — not drinking a thing
— sworn off — ask the Kid. Oh, I forgot ; the Kid's gone
home to his mother — got sick, you know — nice little chap,
the Kid — make a good soldier. Gone home — way up
North — to his mother."

The nurse fanned him. His eyes still stared at the
sleeping flies. The nurse knew then that Fogarty was
picked out for a fifth man. Silently she fanned him and
watched.

Not long after that Fogarty was mustered out of the
service.

And all this is to show how I peered under the veneer,
which environment made, and saw a great, warm heart.

The Story of a Cavalry Horse,

THE STORY OF A CAVALRY HORSE.

There was something of pathos in the high, clear
whinny which was borne across the meadows one sum
mer morning of years ago. A fancy black three-year-old,
trotting behind a shiny buckboard, picked up his ears
and answered his mother in the only way he knew. The
big man in the buckboard was a professional horse-buyer
for Uncle Sam's cavalry.

"Scream again, my young beauty, while you've got the
chance," the man said. "You'll soon be far away from
these meadows and the old lady over yonder who calls to
you."

The horse buyer looked back at the shapely gelding.
His experienced eye took in the wide-distended nostrils
with their crimson lining; the large, intelligent eyes as
dark and deep as a starless ocean. The man in the buck-
board saw again the easy grace of the colt's stride, the
power and elegance of his flat, thin limbs, the arched
beauty of his glossy neck — and he chuckled at his bar
gain. Faint and far-away was heard the neigh of the
mother back in the meadows. The colt plunged a little,
whinnied nervously, and trotted on.

214 The Story of a Cavalry Horse.

There are two kinds of recruits in the cavalry service —
the horses and men. Both must be instructed in the pri
mary mysteries of drills and bugle-calls. Both suffer
during the first days, but gradually the unvarying system
becomes grafted into the very nature of the trooper and
his mount. They need only to be parted from the life for
a little while to learn how dearly they love it. Here is the
story of a wild, irresponsible colt, whose brain was full of
mother and meadow memories, and who became Sheri
dan, the pride of a Black Horse troop. In many ways it
is the story of any cavalry horse.

Long after he became the joy of his master and the
envy of every other cavalryman, Sheridan still remem
bered those dark, awful days in the corral. Every good
trooper knows that a horse can suffer mentally, and that
a colt is like a child, inasmuch as he does not forget his
mother and his first associations in a day. And when a
big cavalryman is seen to pet and cheer a lonely, tremb
ling stranger on the picket line, you can usually judge
that he is a good soldier and a man with a human heart.

There were many nervous youngsters in the corral
where the black three-year-old was turned loose. Many
of them snorted wildly and stood at bay when a man
approached. The pretty gelding with soft, jetty eyes —
the little heart-hungry three-year-old — was soon to learn
what made the other horses so wicked and fearful.

There was the curling swish of a lariat, a sickening jar
from the taut rope — then the black gelding fell heavily to
the turf. One horseman sat upon the trembling animal's

The Story of a Cavalry Horse. 215

head, and another pressed a biting, burning steel into the
glossy softness of his shoulder. For an eternity it seemed
to sizzle into the writhing flesh ; then again the red iron
was pressed against the tenderest skin under the mane.
After that there was weakness and nausea and the wounds
gradually healed into the mark by which every cavalry
horse can be distinguished. "U. S." is what the letters
read.

Then followed the week's ride to the regiment — that
stifling ride in a freight car — packed flank to flank so that
there would be no injury from the jolting of the train.
Oh, how the unhealed shoulders rubbed and burned!
The black gelding's limbs stung with weariness ; his
tongue was shrunken and dried from thirst, his whole
body craved for hay and grain. The tightening lariat,
the burning steel, the killing ride — all helped to create
in the brute mind a lasting horror toward human kind
and wicked thoughts. Is it any wonder that some troop-
horses are painfully slow in giving their trust to the cav
alryman who grooms and cares for them?

But the glossy three-year-old was not ruined by the
suffering of those first days. Perhaps it was a perfect
balance of mind, which the old lady back in the meadows
had given him, which caused the black recruit to suffer
and be gentle still. There was wonderment and fear in
those great, dark eyes, but no sullen hatred lurked there.
The shapely youngster staggered out into the clear day
light, trembling for the events which another day might
bring, yet hoping for brighter things. A detachment of

216 The Story of a Cavalry Horse.

boys in blue led him away to the Black Horse troop, and
his Jife in the cavalry service began with a deep, delicious
drink at the watering-trough and a nosebag full of fresh
grain.

Old cavalrymen are not always charitable to a recruit.
Old cavalry horses are never hospitable to a stranger on
the picket line. If placed at a distance, he is only re
garded with distrust ; if placed within reach of the heels of
the veteran chargers — well, the stranger will kick back if
he is spunky enough. Friendships are mighty on a
picket line, but they are not molded in a day.

"Ah, you're a trim little black baby," said a tall trooper
close to the ear of the dark stranger the first night. His
words made the colt very happy. The cavalryman gently
slapped the glossy breast. "There is blood in your veins,
my little man ; and your eyes are as black and bright as
a squaw maiden's. Why, your chest sticks out like a
game chicken's! Quit breathing on my neck, young
ster. Don't you know that isn't polite?

"By jove, I like you, little black man! Do you sup
pose you're heavy enough to dance around the parade-
ground with a big fellow like me on your back ? If you
were mine, I'd have your black sides shining like a piece
of oiled silk in ten days. Whoever taught you to go nos
ing about a fellow's neck and ears? I suppose they
treated you pretty rough up there in the corral, but you
didn't lose your nerve, did you, kid? Why, you're as
gentle as a young girl with her big sister's first baby!

The Story of a Cavalry Horse. 217

Guess we could serve out an enlistment pretty well to
gether."

It all came about that the new gelding was issued to the
tall trooper, and after that he was known as Sheridan in
the Black Horse troop. The first thing which any cav
alry horse learns is that a certain bugle-call sounds at
headquarters twice a day, and that it causes every cavalry
man to run for a filled nosebag. Then an officer shouts :

"Feed," after which the filled nosebag is strapped in the
proper place. Sheridan learned to whinny expectantly
with the others, when the feed-call sounded. But all the
calls and army movements were a perfect chaos in the
black recruit's brain at first. He wondered why he was
left behind in the morning when all other horses, save
sick ones, were saddled, formed into platoons and ridden
away. Sheridan tried hard to stand quietly when the
regulation saddle was first cinshed about him by the tall
trooper. He tried very hard to do the right thing and
keep his four feet near the turf, when the man mounted.
But there was spirit in the black recruit. He would be
come nervous, in spite of the reassuring whispers of the
big cavalryman, and he would plunge and fret when he
did not understand.

Gradually, however, Sheridan learned to feel the
thoughts of his gentle, patient rider. He learned to
wheel at the touch of a spurless heel. He learned to an
swer the weight of a -bridle-rein upon his neck, and from
the indefinable sameness of the many bugle commands,
there emerged familiar notes to the ears of the black

218 The Story of a Cavalry Horse.

gelding. Like every other troop-horse, Sheridan's
nerves thrilled when the "dash" music burst with a scream
from the trumpet.

"Trot," calls the troop commander. The bugle re
peats it. A hundred dusty campaign hats are jerked
roughly downward. A hundred horses feel a tightening
bit. "Sherry" rears a little, but does not mar the beauty
of the line.

"Gallop," the bugle plays. The horses plunge high in
the ecstacy of anticipation. There is fiery crimson in
every wide-stretched nostril. Every trooper's face is
covered with dust and moisture. Every trooper's jaws
are shut like a vise, and every bridle-arm is as stiff as
steel.

"Draw! Saber!" Listen to the rattle of a hundred
lightened sheaths. Watch the sweep of a hundred flash
ing blades. The sun is playing with the sabers. The
points are held forward, shoulder high and horizontal.

"Charge !" Like an engine answers to an open throt
tle, the horses settle down. Flank to flank they leap for
ward. Madly the men yell. Stirrup touches stirrup. A
dust cloud follows.

"As fast as the slowest horse," the officers have often
warned.

There is no slowest horse ! It is a race — a wild, strain
ing, exhilarating race. The horses bound low. The men
feel under them a moveless saddle. Not a head mars the
symmetry of the line. It is beautiful, with an awful
beauty — this American cavalry dash !

The Story of a Cavalry Horse. 219

Sheridan trembled for hours after it, even while the tall
trooper caressed him.

"Why, Sherry, your gait is a lullaby," the big cavalry
man would say. "You dash like a shooting star. You're
a born soldier, bright eyes, and the best horse in the
troop. . . . No, I haven't any sugar stowed away in
that shirt pocket, so you needn't nose for it. Maybe I
didn't know a good thing when I picked you out. What
have I ever done that you should knock my hat off with
your nose. Ah, you're a playful little darkey-joker !"

At the watering-trough Sheridan touched noses with
Poncho and made friends. Another day he walked close
to the heels of Rio Grande, a long, black-bodied charger,
and the latter did not even lower his ears. Again he was
tethered next to Cherokee on the picket line, and the two
became chummy. The black gelding was a troop-horse
now ; "one of the fanciest," who knew no life nor desired
to know no other than that of the cavalry. The whinny
which floated over the meadows that summer morning
long ago was only a misty memory. And all the while
there grew in the mind of the beautiful black a deeper,
truer affection for the tall trooper who groomed and
petted him.

But men come and go in every cavalry outfit — the
horses seldom change. Old soldiers finish their terms of
enlistment, recruits come in. Sheridan, every inch for
the cavalry, lost his old master whom he loved. He was
sought after by each man in the troop — and he tried
bravely and sorrowfully to become attached to his new

22O The Story of a Cavalry Horse.

owner. ... At times one of his old friends would
be missed from the picket line and never seen again. Was
there to be an end to this breezy, beautiful life?

The sun of a Tampa summer faded the black gloss from
Sheridan's back, and every other animal in the Black-
Horse troop was hued like the shoulders of a preacher 3
old coat when that summer was ended. But Sherry was
mighty still. Not one of the six hundred horses with
stood better the horrors of the transport during an eleven
days' trip from the States to Ponce, Porto Rico. Where
the lower tier of horses were kept, the air was heavy with
death. The cavalrymen, half mad through weariness,
threw pails of salt water upon the drooping horses. The
eyes of the animals were filmy and half closed. Many
sank and moved not again until the hoisting gear raised
them up through the hatches, suspended them over the
vessel's side, and the rope was severed. And the cavalry
men, who loved their horses, watched them silently as
they dropped into the tropical sea. Troopers can live
through such a trip, and feel only achings in the head ;
but no horse has the vitality of his rider.

And Sheridan, no longer a four-year-old, climbed the
muddy hills of Porto Rico's interior, as strong of wind
and sure of foot as any native pony. Other horses choked
and died of pneumonia, caused by the endless rain, but
Sherry stood upon his feet in the daytime and whinnied
when the feed-call sounded. Sherry did not know that
his best days were spent.

At last there came a morning when many new horses

The Story of a Cavalry Horse. 221

were brought to the troop headquarters. Something
pained pitilessly in the brain of the splendid old charger
when he saw his master studying and stroking the limbs
of those recruits. After that Sherry had no master. For
a little while he was used for recruits to practice upon.

"Old Sherry wouldn't hurt a baby," the first sergeant
would say to the embryo cavalryman. There were no
more pettings ; no more sugar during those last days in
Porto Rico, but deep down in the heart of the old black
gelding there was a hurting wound. The soft dark eyes
were wise and mild still, but at times they would seem to
fill with shame and sadness.

Sheridan could not keep back the weight which the
years brought, nor the stiffness which came from the
muddy Porto Rican hills. He thought more during those
long, rainy days of the mother who had called to him
from the far-away meadows. He longed for the first
trooper who had so patiently taught him to be a good
cavalry horse. Old Sherry drowsed and dreamed of the
campaigns when he was the pride of the Black Horse
troop — poor old Sherry.

Then there came a sad, prophetic day. He learned
then what had become of his old friends, Buster, Chero
kee, Rio Grande, Poncho and Mint Julep.

Again there was the crushing weight of the tightened
lariat, the red iron and the nausea. "I. C." were the let
ters which slowly healed upon the shoulder of the old
troop-horse now. "Inspected and Condemned," is what
the letters mean. Back to the hated civilian the veteran

222 The Story of a Cavalry Horse.

of the Black Horse troop must go. Sheridan was auc
tioned off for "what he would bring." Oh, the shame of
it!

No cavalry horses are ever brought back from Porto
Rico. A rich Spanish planter led the old black away
from the life he loved. Over the muddy hills was borne
the bugle call for feeding. Sheridan raised his head,
whinnied and looked back. The Spaniard pulled at the
halter, and the old troop-horse — no longer — obeyed as
he had always done.

There were only a few days more. The morning
dawned when Sherry did not regain his feet. His soft,
dark eyes seemed to linger upon other scenes. There
was something unreadable in their misty depths. His old
friends, the life and the trooper whom he had loved — all
were gone. He would not touch grain. Even the
strength of the mighty Sheridan had left him. No cav
alryman stood by to hold that drooping head and to
cheer that breaking heart. . . . There was nothing
left but the ghost of the old black charger — a ghost with
a broken heart.

But in the regulations it reads that old cavalry horse
must be condemned and sold "for what they will bring."

A Soldier and a Man.

A SOLDIER AND A MAN

A certain trooper riding through the poverty district
of Ciales with a main guard detail, glanced at a native
senorita whose features were pretty. Since the senorita
glanced back, the trooper smiled, as any other American
soldier would have done. It was only the smile of a
second on the part of the soldier, because there was some
thing about the face of the red maiden which was like
the scratch of a pin upon the naked nerve. The next
day when the main guard was relieved, if you had ques
tioned the cavalryman concerning the circumstance, he
would have remembered it with difficulty, because it made
no impression.

But the red maiden did not forget. At the moment,
the smile of the soldier was a thrill to her, and in the
night it became a dream, and the next day it was a mem
ory — restless, imperious, passionate.

Her name was Eulalie. If she ever had another, she
did not remember it any more than she remembered who
her father and her mother were. Nor would she have
cared had not the other senoritas in the poverty district
reminded her day after day that her family was a name
less thing. Because the other senoritas were at least posi-

228 A Soldier and a Man.

tive on the point of their mothers, they delighted in
nursing the torrid venom which was in Eulalie's nature,
through their indelicate suggestions.

There was another thing, however, which hurt her far
more cruelly than the biting words of her little red sister
maidens. It was the same thing which jarred upon the
nerves of the trooper, who rode by with the main guard.
And since the American cavalrymen had been quartered
in the old Spanish barracks at Ciales, where Eulalie
lived, she had truly learned the horrid pain which was
her misfortune.

There is majesty and ardor and romance in the dark
Spanish eyes of the Porto Rican senoritas, but their teeth
are imperfect, and this is because the rain-showered hills
of their native land are full of sugar and acid. The
sweetness is drawn up in the stalk of the cane and in the
shaft of the cocoa-palm, and the acid is absorbed by the
orange and lemon trees. The combination has spoiled
the smile of many a red maiden, and caused tooth-ache
remedies to rank next in importance to quinine in the
chests of the regimental surgeon-major.

When Eulalie was a very little girl there had come
to her a deeper affliction. She remembered very little
about it now — hardly anything except that a dark-faced
fellow had struck her, and then kicked her afterward,
because the hand wbich he had used was bleeding. After
that there was a dark hole, where Eulalie's two front
teeth should have been. Perhaps the little red maiden
would never have cared had not the American cavalry-

A Soldier and a Man. 229

men come to live in the old Spanish garrison, which was
only a little way from the poverty district where Eulalie
slept at night.

In truth, she might have married Manrique Robles,
the ox-driver, and lived in a little shack on the Manati
trail, but there was much of garlic about Manrique, and
much of ill-temper, as the scarred flanks of his steers
would testify. Besides, she had seen the big, white
cavalrymen who came from the Northland, and she hated
Manrique when she noticed how polite he was to them.
Besides, some of her red sister maidens had barkened
unto the strange language of these white horsemen, and
was it not whispered that the same maidens had parted
their lips for the kisses of the men who spoke this lan
guage ?

Indeed, she would not marry Manrique, for he was
very ugly and very black; and when the Manati fords
were high and impassable so that he could not go down
the trail with his ox-cart, there was always blended with
the garlic about him the odor of white rum, and then
Manrique was uglier than ever.

But would the big cavalrymen ever smile upon her?
Would she not become; — if she refused to marry Man
rique — would she not become like Mad Marie who slept
in the jail, and all day long staggered about the streets,
lugging a half-dead baby, and begging for centavos with
which to buy more rum — begging forever? Would the
big cavalrymen ever smile at her, when she was so ugly
to look upon? Would not the other senoritas tell the

230 A Soldier and a Man.

white soldiers that she was nameless? Oh, why was she
born so? Why did her sister maidens persecute her so?

"Ave Marie!" Eulalie would mutter despairingly when
her mind burned with all these thoughts. Even if she
did not know her mother, there was hunger in her heart
just the same. Even if she was without two front teeth,
there was ardor in her soul just the same. Yes, and there
was a rare softness in her cheeks, and little beauty tints
that were as faint as they were wonderful. And there
was a thrilling sadness in her great, dark, Spanish eyes,
and long lashes shaded these tropical gems lest they
should shine too brightly. And her hair — Eulalie's hair
— ah, it was as dusky as the night in a rayless Rio Grande
gorge, and it was as soft as — ah, but there was nothing
so soft as Eulalie's hair !

But Eulalie knew only that she was nameless, and that
she was ugly when her red lips were parted, for the
other senoritas did not tell her more than this. And
after the big, white cavalrymen came, every day she
cared less for Manrique, and every day she hated herself
more, because the soldiers laughed and made love to the
other senoritas, but did not come near her. When the
moon-beams whitened the hard clay of the plaza, the
soldiers strolled up and down, and in low tones they
repeated all the Spanish words they knew into the ears
of the other little red maidens; but Eulalie was alone,
except for when Manrique was very persistent.

And at last the great day came, when the trooper rode
through the poverty district with the main guard detail —

A Soldier and a Man. 231

and smiled for a single, memorable, rapturous second —
and was gone.

Trooper Arden was respected, if not understood. And
let it be known that a private soldier is not respected
by his fellows without reason. Trooper Arden won the
regard of the other troopers in seven minutes, on the
hurricane deck of a transport, the second day out from
Savannah.

When one writes that Corporal Carey was a good sol
dier, it does not necessarily imply that he was a good
fellow; but nobody ever said that the corporal wasn't
game to the backbone. Anyway, the corporal was Irish
and proud of the force in his fists. In fact, the whole
troop was proud of Carey, just the same as it would
be proud of owning the fastest horse in a regiment.
Trooper Arden sacrificed Corporal Carey, and thereby
attained the respect of his fellows. It was legitimate,
and this way:

"Oi could lave you fur dead in tirty seconds," said
the corporal, on the hurricane deck, and the crowd
lounged closer.

"If I should fight you," Arden replied quietly, "I would
be court-martialed for hitting an officer."

"The nerve av him !" jeered the corporal. "If Oi win,
Oi'm an officer — if Oi lose, Oi'm a man, and a scrubby
little wart at that."

"Then I'll fight you," said Arden wearily, tossing away
a cigarette.

232 A Soldier and a Man.

In the forward hold of the transport, a temporary
hospital had been fitted up. Corporal Carey dragged
himself thither twice daily during the remainder of the
voyage. And so it was that one soldier gained respect
for himself.

But Trooper Arden was not understood. He ate less,
slept less, and talked less than any other man in the
troop. Six out of every eleven regular soldiers smoke
cigarettes. Arden smoked more than any two men in
the outfit. For supper he would invariably draw double
rations of coffee. When taps sounded and the lights
were ordered out, the cups untouched might be seen on
the box beside his bunk. At reveille in the morning the
cups were still there, but they were empty. If you were
in the same squad with Arden, and you happened to wake
up in the middle of the night, you would be apt to see
the face of the trooper glowing behind a cigarette. He
never seemed tired, never missed a call, never complained,
never swore — all of which was unsoldierly.

He was lean, dark, and without fear. By his face you
would not know whether he had been a preacher or a
gambler before his enlistment. He was nervous, but not
irritable ; reserved, but not impolite ; educated, but a good
fellow still. On pay-days he gambled. He lost cheer
fully, but seldom. He won carelessly. He drank, but
you would never know it unless you happened to see
him. Arden was a mystery — a mystery with a grudge
against himself. Perhaps it was his other life that made
him so.

A Soldier and a Man. 233

It was Trooper Arden who smiled at Eulalie and
turned his head away so quickly, while riding with the
main guard that morning. In an hour later he had for
gotten. His horse was Palto, the unkillable, whose tem
per was as rocky as his sinews were tough — Palto, the
six-year-old, who alone kept his appetite during the
eleven-day transport horror, and who kicked out of pure
joy every time a nose-bag was strapped over his white
face. Palto had a habit of kicking promiscuously, any
way. He also bit with abandon, but he was solid with
Trooper Arden.

Only one thing beside the trooper's smile did Eulalie,
the little red maiden, remember the next day; and,
strangely enough, this one thing was that the horse
which her soldier had ridden was possessed of a white
face.

And that evening just after retreat, Arden walked
down to the stables just to be alone, and in the twilight
he saw queer things.

It was quite dark under the canvas of the stables, and
as Arden strolled nearer, he heard sounds soft and low —
the sound of words which were strangely sweet. The
trooper paused and watched, rolling a cigarette mean
while. The troop horses were grinding at their oats
and snorting the dust of the dry hay from their nostrils.
. . . Surely, here was something wonderful ! Was
there not some one standing close to the white face of
Palto, the unkillable?

Yes, and it was a girlish form, and her head was snug-

234 A Soldier and a Man.

gled closely into the mane of Palto, the white-faced.
And, Carainba! The brute Palto was as gentle as the
girl herself ! Trooper Arden crept closer. The cigarette
remained nnlit in his lips. Far up the trail the great
white cliffs were monstrous gray and gloomy, standing
out against the purple of evening. Beyond the stars were
growing and whitening. A bunch of cavalrymen in the
plaza were singing a song of the Northland.

"Buenos nochas, senorita," Trooper Arden said softly.
He looked like a different fellow when he smiled as he
did that moment.

Eulalie turned. The cavalryman could not see the ter
ror that was in her great, dark eyes. Slowly he ap
proached and placed his hand gently upon her arm. With
the other he rubbed the forehead of Palto, the unkillable,
talking softly all the while. And gradually there crept
into the soul of the little red maiden a joy which was
great and new. There was no need to fear, for had not
the big soldier smiled? After a little while Eulalie
pressed her lips to the soft muzzle of the troop horse;
and strangely enough Palto, of reputations numerously
bad, seemed to like it.

And Trooper Arden smiled again, and walked out to
ward the forage-tent, while Eulalie followed. Standing
there in the fading twilight, an impulse came to the sol
dier — an impulse which he had long thought was dead
within him. He kissed the little red maiden.

There was something about that kiss which made the
trooper reflect. Perhaps his thoughts concerned some

A Soldier and a Man. 235

other woman whom he knew before he became an atom
in the great blue mass of Uncle Sam's horsemen. Per
haps — but that would be irrelevant! In a moment more
he was the man with a grudge against himself, and he
uttered this exclamation:

"Ba-ah!"

Eulalie shuddered slightly, though she did not under
stand. Arden grasped her arm softly as if in apology,
and the two walked out of the corral toward the trail.
As they passed a clump of low palms, a native emerged.
Unconsciously Eulalie shrank closer to the soldier. A
second afterward she turned and saw a look upon the
native's face which caused her to shudder again. And
this time she understood. The native was Manrique, the
ox-driver, and he had bowed with abject courtesy to the
soldier.

A little later Trooper Arden sank down upon his bunk
to smoke and think, and Eulalie hastened away toward
the poverty district, where her home was. Ah, but she
was a very happy little red maiden that hour! The sol
diers were still lounging and humming in the plaza, for
taps had not yet sounded. Mad Marie, who begged eter
nally for the centavos, had attained a state of melancholy
inebriation by this time, and was howling in a maudlin
monotone in front of the quarters. A couple of native
policemen dragged her into the jail, which was also a
poor-house, and the soldiers, watching, laughed among
themselves. Her child was silent in the woman's arms.

After taps sounded one might have seen Manrique, the

236 A Soldier and a Man.

ox-driver, drinking white rum in the cafe. His face was
not pleasant to look upon. And when the cafe was closed
and he could stay no longer, Manrique staggered over to
the poverty district of the town and paused in front of
one of the shacks. Loudly he kicked the bolted door.
There was no reply, and he kicked again and a third time.
Then he staggered away toward his own shack on the
Manati trail. And as he went, Manrique cursed in a
strange tongue.

Everywhere about him was the black shade of a moon
less tropical night, and everywhere above him was the
white glory of the tropical stars.

********

"What in the devil do you call that beast Talto'
for?" whispered a trooper standing next to Arden at
grooming-time the next morning.

Any soldier knows that no talking is allowed at groom
ing. That is why the man next to Arden whispered his
question. Palto, the unkillable, had just damaged the
hide of the troop horse nearest. At regular intervals the
white-faced was facetious, and he invariably vented it
in this manner on any live thing which happened to
be near, so long as it was not Trooper Arden. The latter
eyed the other soldier curiously for a second, and then an
swered the question in this manner:

"A woman I used to know back in the States had a
habit of calling her dog Talto.' "

The soldier who asked the question grinned forbear-

A Soldier and a Man. 237

ingly, said nothing further, and arrived at this conclu
sion:

"Arden is a soldier because some white woman threw
him down. He is eating his heart out because he landed
hard and cannot forget."

The conjecture was a safe one, but the soldier did not
guess that the dog which the woman had called "Palto"
and the trooper who smoked cigarettes and drank black
coffee while other troopers slept, were both embodied in
the one being, who was scrubbing the mud of Porto
Rican hills from the hocks of the white-faced.

"Cease grooming!" shouted the top-sergeant. The
features of Trooper Arden were a study of grimness as
he walked up the trail toward the quarters. That even
ing Arden smiled for the first time in twenty-four hours
when he saw Eulalie cuddling cosily into the mane of his
very bad and very bossy troop horse. The unkillable
revealed a forbearance which was startling and unutter
able. A half hour later when the man and the maiden
walked out of the corral toward the trail, Palto whinnied
a farewell like the soldier and gentleman he was.

"Adios," smiled back the little red maiden, but Palto
did not notice since he had just unjointed several lengths
of aft quarters, and landed a scientific double hook
against the high-sounding ribs of his neighbor. The sole
offence of the neighbor was that he came within reach.
Palto always insisted upon having an ample share of the
picket line.

No Spanish words were spoken as the two walked

238 A Soldier and a Man.

slowly up the trail toward the plaza and the quarters;
yet in the mind of each there was heaviness. The man
was thinking of the joy and pain of human attachments.
In a glance of the red maiden's wonderful eyes as she
stood beside him in the falling night, he had seen her
passionate soul. He had never meant to play with Eu-
lalie. He knew the wounds and wickedness of such a
doing. A woman in the Northland had inflicted such
wounds upon her dog, Palto — but he had kissed the little
red maiden! And that night the soldier knew that he
could crush the heart of Eulalie through a careless word
or a scornful glance — even as his own had been crushed.

But what did he care — bah ! He had lived his life. He
would be a soldier now until the hateful breathing was
over. He hoped it would be over soon. He was not to
blame if his nature became a mass of broken fragments
because of the caprice of a white woman. He had lived
his life. He could not love — no, it was a hard, a bitter
thing to love! Still he could pity. But what did he
care? . . . Still — he — could — pity!

Of what was the little red maiden thinking? Of each
moment which had been a rapture until she saw the ugly
black face and the horrid eyes of Manrique, the ox-driver,
glaring at her from a shadow as she walked up the trail
toward the plaza.

That night before the man and maiden parted, Eulalie
turned her eyes toward the face of the soldier, and her
hands were upon the soldier's shoulder. Then Trooper
Arden kissed the little red maiden as any other Ameri-

A Soldier and a Man. 239

can would have done. And Eulalie, in the greatness of
her joy, smiled; but it was so dark that the cavalryman
did not see what caused him to turn his eyes away so
quickly as he rode with the main guard detail that first
day.

Manrique, the ox-driver, skulked in the darkness and
brooded, and Mad Marie was noisy up by the quarters.

After taps sounded, Trooper Arden was alone with his
black coffee, his cigarettes — and his thoughts. It was
late that night before Manrique shuffled into his shack
on the Manati trail, and the next day his steers suffered.

In the evenings which followed, Palto, the unkillable,
welcomed his master and the maiden down at the stables ;
and often in dark places the soldier saw a native follow
ing him strangely. The face of the native was sinister,
even when he saluted abjectly, but Arden did not care
to understand.

One day when he was doing a guard in the poverty dis
trict, Eulalie watched him shyly frcm the door-way of her
shack. A group of senoritas strolling up and down in
the sunshine paused to remind Eulalie that her family
was nameless. The trooper pacing his post understood
the Spanish words which were repeated by the senoritas,
and he caught the significance of the manner in which
they were uttered. One of the red maidens showed her
teeth, and then pointed to the face of Eulalie, after which
all the red maidens laughed loudly. Eulalie grew gray
with shame and fled from sight. The trooper understood

240 A Soldier and a Man.

all these things, and he was very thoughtful as he paced
up and down.

In truth, he had lived his life. He was only a soldier
now. He feared nothing, not even himself. He did not
fear Fate. Why should he since Fate had done its very
worst by him? . . . Still he could pity! And that
evening down at the stables poor Eulalie forgot all her
woes, because the soldier smiled often ; and while he was
near her the hunger went out from her heart. A great
and good thing is pity. Manrique, the ox-driver, knew
it not as he watched the man and the maiden from a
shadow.

One morning a few minutes after reveille, the troopers
lounging in front of the cavalry quarters stood erect and
yelled. The pay-master with a volunteer guard was ap
proaching on the Manati trail. That night the bunks
were changed into gaming tables, and many bottles of
white rum were sold at the cafe, and much money changed
hands.

Trooper Arden could not lose that night, but the sol
diers who sat with him could; and if it ever occurred
to them that Arden was "working a system," they did
not say so, for Arden was a respected man in the troop.
It seemed that night as if Fate were trying to palliate
the harshness of her former dealings with this man. His
pile grew big, but by his aspect you would have imagined
that he was losing steadily. He was the same mystery.

One by one the losers made resolutions for the next
pay-day, and dropped out of the game. And when there

A Soldier and a Man. 241

was no more playing, Trooper Arden gathered up the
deniro Americano^ which had come his way, handed it
uncounted to the first sergeant to keep, and walked out
of the quarters. As he neared the plaza somebody crept
out of the shadow and followed him unsteadily — but

silently.

********

"He's a wizard," observed one trooper, when Arden
was no longer present.

"He has soaked up a couple or three hundred this
night," said another.

"And there is suicide stamped all over his face," re
marked a third.

"He's the best soldier in the bunch of you," growled
the sergeant of the squad.

"And he can make any two av ye sleep the sleep av
an innacint baby-girl wid the fists av him."

This last came from Corporal Carey, and it came with
decision. At this moment the stable guard dashed into
the room.

"Some greaser has cut Arden in the back ! He says
it's only a scratch, but he can't stand. Come on, you fel
lows — grab those lanterns !"

The squad-room was deserted in a second, and a half-
dozen troopers were double-timing it for the stables.
Arden was lying upon the ground with his head against
a bale of hay.

"It's only a little puncture," he said, quite evenly.
. . . "Say, corporal, reach those cigarette papers from

242 A Soldier and a Man.

my left-hand pocket. I can't work this hand. Oh, I'll
roll it myself — gracias muchas! . . . Give me a light,
please."

"Tell me what you know," demanded the first sergeant,
striding up.

"The black boy who struck me didn't do a good job—
I know that! ... I was standing at Palto's head
telling him a little love story. All at once the brute sniffed
and struck at something over my shoulder. Just at that
moment I felt the scratch, and a native ducked under the
picket-line and dashed toward the trail. Palto took a shot
at the fellow passing, but he didn't land "

A streak of pallor from the lantern rested upon the
fallen trooper's face. The first sergeant had two other
questions to ask. He wanted to know if Arden was sure
it was a native who knifed him. He would not have
thought such a thing if it had not been for the pay-day
and the winnings. He desired to know also if Trooper
Arden had seen the face of the man with the knife. But
the whiteness of the soldier's features caused the first
sergeant to remain silent, and his thoughts made htm
look very stern. He detailed an extra guard for the
stables, and ordered four privates to carry the wounded
man up to the quarters. Then he walked up and down
in the darkness.

That night when the troop surgeon returned to the offi
cers' quarters after attending the wound of Private Ar
den, he remarked to the troop commander:

"That fellow Arden is positively without feeling. He

A Soldier and a Man. 243

laid perfectly still upon his bunk and puffed away at a
cigarette while I took a foot of stitches in his back."

"It isn't a case of taps, is it?" the captain inquired.

The surgeon did not think so. There were conditions,
however. He believed that his patient knew more about
what had happened to him than he cared to tell. But
he did not divine the true reason why Arden was silent.
All the commissioned officers knew that there would be
no sleep and much trouble in the cavalry quarters until
the native who cut Arden was cold — that is, if his identity
became known. They knew, too, that there was a possi
bility of a young war being started, because it often hap
pens that when troopers are unleashed for an hour they
remain restless for days. You could not have made a^
commissioned officer believe, however, that Arden was
silent because he also understood this point.

The fortnight following evinced certain peculiarities.
Any hour almost in the long, hot days, Trooper Arden
had only to glance out of the big door of the quarters
to see a face, the expression of which was a mute prayer
that he would live. Eulalie, the little red maiden, was
as near his side as she dared to be. The agony of her
heart was reflected in the eyes that peered into the cav
alry quarters — peered hungrily, hopelessly, for the glance
of the soldier who had become her God, whose breath was
her morning and her night, whose smile was her heaven !

Had you driven her away from the door-way of the
American garrison, Eulalie would have died — after one
thing was accomplished. The soldiers laughed at her;

244 A Soldier and a Man.

she did not hear them. The other red maidens scoffed
at her; Eulalie heeded them not. A native fruit vender
standing all day at the corner of the plaza saw that she
ate nothing. He tossed a couple of bananas in her direc
tion. She carried the fruit for hours in her hand, not
knowing that it was there. She lived for nothing save
for the smile of her soldier. She remembered nothing
save that he had kissed her!

And all the while Trooper Arden suffered (though
you would have to see his wound to know it), and he
watched the little red maiden and rolled cigarettes with
his good hand and wondered. In truth, life held no joy
for him. Sometimes he felt sorry that Palto, the white-
faced, had spoiled the work of the knife. He could not
help it, if it were his nature to despair silently, smilingly,
because he was not the light of one white woman's eyes.
No, he could not help that, but he could see every minute
in the day a woman's soul through the eyes that watched
him from the door-way of the garrison. Trooper Arden
could see a woman's soul with all its ardor, hope, desire
and despair. He could not love — no, because to him the
past was eternal, since it held a deathless memory. . . .
Still, he could pity!

And so days grew and became a part of that which is
gone ; and in none of them was Manrique, the ox-driver,
seen in the Ciales cafe or in the town ; but many times
the Manati torrent laved the blood from the flanks of his
steers as they breasted the fords. And all the while Eu
lalie watched her soldier from the door-way.

A Soldier and a Man. 245

At last the night came when Trooper Arden muttered
many strange things and forgot to smoke. The troop
surgeon looked at the soldier's wound, and in the same
breath he cursed the tropics. He wondered what the
patient meant in mumbling continually about a dog whose
name was "Palto," but the soldiers who stood near
thought that their fellow was dreaming of his white-faced
troop horse.

********

If you ever get a bad cut while you are in the tropics,
set your face toward the north at once. If you are a sol
dier, and your troop commander does not advise you to
take a furlough, he is either heartless or inexperienced.
Flesh wounds do not heal on white men or horses in the
tropics. All troop commanders and surgeons know this
now, but they didn't know it in Arden's outfit until the
night that the patient mumbled incoherently and ceased
smoking cigarettes. And when the bit of knowledge was
forcibly thrust upon the troop surgeon, he cursed the
tropics, instead of himself. At the same time, he did
not think that the patient was in a fit condition to be
moved now.

The next morning Trooper Arden opened his eyes, and
wondered how he had happened to sleep so long. He
would have moved his head, but there was something
wrong with the muscles of his neck. He rolled a cigar
ette with his right hand, and the room orderly struck a
match for him. The troop surgeon entered at this mo
ment.

246 A Soldier and a Man.

"Do you want to go up north ?" the doctor asked.

Arden spoke no word for several seconds. Then he
turned his eyes toward the door-way. He saw Eulalie,
the little red maiden. He saw, too, the agony and the
prayer which was in her great, dark, Spanish eyes. Then
he said to the troop surgeon :

"I don't know of any one who is pining for me back
in the States. . . . No, I don't want to go — up
north!"

An hour later the first sergeant entered the squad-room.
Arden eyed him thoughtfully for a moment and then said :

"I would be very glad, sergeant, if you would give
me that bunch of money that I left with you the other
night."

The non-commissioned officer brought him the win
nings.

"Thank you, sergeant," Arden resumed. "Could I see
the chaplain this morning?"

Eulalie was at the door-way, and a few minutes after
ward the godly man of the regiment was brought to the
wounded trooper's bedside. For a time he listened to
low-spoken words from the man in the bunk, after which
Eulalie was also brought to the trooper's bedside. And
gradually there came to her the mighty realization that
she was no longer nameless, for did not the interpreter
tell her so in her own tongue? And she was allowed to
kiss the white soldier, but why — why was this money —
this fortune placed in her hands by the chaplain?
She would die for the smiles of the white soldier — but

A Soldier and a Man. 247

his money — his name . . . The great, dark eyes of
the red maiden were stretched wide apart, and the prayer
was still in them !

Trooper Arden seemed very weary. He was not to
blame because his nature could do nothing but pity now.
He had not meant to trifle with Eulalie. He knew the
human harshness of that — ah, so well he knew it! But
he had kissed the little red maiden. It was only one of
the mistakes of which his life was made. He sighed,
for he was very weary. He asked a trooper near him
for a cigarette, because Eulalie was holding fast to the
one hand which he could use. He was glad that he could
even pity!

And this was the man whom a woman of the Northland
had called Palto, and sent away to be a soldier.

On a night not long afterward Eulalie, the little red
maiden, was seen passing by the cavalry quarters at
Ciales. Mad Marie was wailing mournfully in the street,
and her child was silent in her arms. In one of the squad-
rooms Corporal Carey was telling the other troopers
what a great fellow Trooper Arden had been. Eulalie
passed by a group of senoritas in the plaza. They no
longer called her nameless.

Down at the stables Palto, the unkillable, whinnied a
greeting to the little red maiden as she approached, and
he held his head very still when Eulalie buried her face
in his mane. Taps sounded up in the quarters, and still
the form stood close to the white face of the troop horse.
After the stable guard was relieved at midnight, Eulalie

248 A Soldier and a Man.

walked stealthily down the Manati trail toward the shack
of Manrique, the ox-driver.

Moment after moment passed as she listened in the
darkness by the door-way. And at last she crept in as
silently as her shadow on the threshold — as silently as
fell the starbeams, which were everywhere !

And the next day, and in the days which followed, the
steers of Manrique, the driver, browsed unyoked on the
Porto Rican hills and fattened.

THE END.

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